GA-ASI to Design Unmanned Off-Board Sensing Station Aircraft

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) awarded General Atomics $18 million to design and develop an unmanned Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS) aircraft.

Representative image.

AFRL is developing an open architecture concept Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) to achieve its goals of rapid time-to-market and low acquisition cost, while extending and enhancing the sensing volume of manned platforms.

The award covers the next 12 months as the base effort, and if the option is exercised, GA-ASI will spend the following 15 months manufacturing and flight demonstrating the aircraft with the award potentially growing to a total of $49 million.