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| GA-ASI Successfully Develops Air-to-Air Laser Communication System For US Drones |
International Military - The technology that accompanies drones is getting more sophisticated. Recently General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) of the United States has successfully completed flight tests for air-to-air laser communications.
The company says this application is useful for military purposes. The demonstration of capability was conducted from Montgomery Field in Kearney Mesa, California using two King Air aircraft. The two aircraft are integrated with the GA-ASI Laser Airborne Communication (LAC) terminal. The aircraft took off into segregated airspace near Yuma, Arizona.
GA-ASI explained, the team assigned to this test was able to maintain a communication link with a data transfer rate of 1 GB/second. Data exchanged in real time includes voice, video and navigation data.
Satish Krishnan, Deputy President of GA-ASI Mission Payloads & Exploitation, said that this success was an important milestone for the development of Lasercom GA-ASI. Laser communication is a suitable choice for military applications because of its ability to support higher data transfer rates compared to radio frequency systems. This mode of communication also features anti-jamming and low intercept probability/low detectability.
It is said that lasercom will equip GA-ASI's future drones, including the MQ-9A Reaper, MQ-1C Gray Eagle 25M, and MQ-9B SkyGuardian/SeaGuardian.