lighter-than-air vehicles - Defense Innovation Marketplace

Blue Devil 2Table 20: Blue Devil 2 Program OverviewVehicle Class: Optionally manned,Conventional AirshipFigure 31: Blue Devil 2 Airship Detail 34Mission Set: Low-Altitude ISR Program Start: 2010PM/POC: Lt. Col. Dale R. White, USAF BigSafariOrganization(s): USAF, Army, JIEDDO Technology Readiness Level (TRL): 5Primary Contractor(s): Mav6Current Status: UnfundedThe Blue Devil 2 technology is beingdeveloped as a QRC in response to multipletheater requirements covered under JUONS.The system is intended to provide apersistent multi-INT ISR capability, whichcan provide decision makers with both realtimeintelligence and post-mission forensics.The ultimate goal is to provide an airshipbasedISR aerial fusion node that integratesmultiple distributed and local sensors withon-board processing. 35The optionally manned platform is a Mav6M1400-I, which is developed by airshipenvelope vendor TCOM as the P1000model. The airship is 370 ft. long anddesigned to carry payloads up to 2,500 lbs.(additional specifications shown in Table21). The ISR payload selected for the systemconsists of wide area field-of-view (WFOV)and narrow area field-of-view (NFOV) EOand IR sensors for SIGINT cueing,collection, geo-location and target ID, aswell as real-time automated tipping andcueing. Communications payloads provideline of sight (LOS) and beyond line of sight(BLOS) communications with tactical users,other ISR assets, and decision makers viacommon data links (CDLs), lasercommunications and satellitecommunications. The diversecommunications payload and the vastamount of on-board processing wereintended to support the “fusion node”mission set. 3540