flightglobal.com 17-23 February 2015 | Flight International | 47
AUSTRALIA
SPECIAL REPORT“When you are looking at the ground build-
ings aren’t moving and you can build an algo-
rithm to look for things that are in motion, but
the sea is in a constant state of flux,” he says.
“We had to figure out how to remove the clut-
ter that’s out there because there are wave tops
and all sorts of things moving. The software is
what is able to differentiate that from other
signal returns. We also have to take into con-
sideration different sea states and from differ-
ent altitudes, angles and ranges.”
Triton will also have to spy on littoral areas
that encompass shallow water, crowded ports
and heavy surface vessel traffic, another
unique challenge for a maritime optimised ISR
platform with a limited payload capability.
“The littorals are a very intense environ-
ment compared to what you would do over a
land environment,” he says.
The navy plans to install air traffic de-
confliction and collision avoidance radar
that will operate under a future software
configuration, but has scrapped plans for an
air-to-air radar subsystem (AARSS) as a
sense-and-avoid system, the DOT&E report
says. Triton will have to operate from bases
with ground-based radar until an AARSS
solution can be found.
Software configuration IFC 4, which is
scheduled to come online around 2018, will
include operational capability for a sense-
and-avoid radar being developed in co-opera-
Ground testing began in the week of 26 January and is expected to run for six weeks tion with Excelis, Mackey says. ■
Since arriving on the US East Coast the aircraft have had sensors and software installed“[The Triton] will be ready
for operational assessment
in mid- to late May”
MIKE MACKEY
Programme manager, Northrop MQ-4CUS NavyNorthrop Grumman“That entire assembly we took and mount-
ed it on the Gulfstream and over the past
three years completed 42 test flight events,”
Burke says. “The entire purpose was to
mature the radar performance and identify
problem areas that we needed to fix in a
testbed environment prior to putting it on
the Triton.”
Problems did arise with sensor stability,
maritime target surveillance and tracking
performance, and synthetic aperture radar
image quality, according to the Pentagon’s
2014 annual operational test and evaluation
report. The programme implemented radar
software changes to correct those issues prior
to installing the hardware on Triton, the
report says.
“Other UAS platforms have experienced
degradation in performance when sensors
move from surrogate platforms to the devel-
opmental aircraft,” the report says. “It is likely
that some degradation is possible with Triton
as well, but the continuing MFAS test flights
on the surrogate have reduced the risk of ini-
tial integration.”
Triton’s sensors therefore will be tested on
the ground before its first fully operational
flight with IFC 2.2, Burke says. Since arriving
on the East Coast the aircraft have had sensor
hardware and software installed and received
routine maintenance. They also underwent a
series of electromagnetic interference tests to
ensure emissions from the aircraft will not in-
terfere with data transmission and other on-
board systems, he says.
All three prototypes will be available for
flight testing, but two are likely to be put into
a one-flight-week rotation in the run-up to
OA, while the third will undergo ground-
based electromagnetic testing and non-sensor
envelope-expansion, he says.
“So we then will carry that on through a
total seven flights that will lead us to be ready
for operational assessment in mid- to late
May,” Mackey says.DE-ICING
In order to operate at sea, the Triton must be
able to swoop low through clouds to peer at
the ocean surface. Unlike its cousin the
Global Hawk, Triton has wing de-icing capa-
bilities to deal with such environmental ex-
tremes. The aircraft are equipped with
thumpers that break ice that accumulates
along the leading edge of the wings, but they
are not yet functional. IFC 3 will integrate the
software to control the de-icing equipment, he
says. That configuration is set to fly before the
end of the year.