Photo courtesy U.S. Army military A Quick Reaction Capability Grey Eagle with Lynx 30 radar taxis before surveillance mission at Camp Taji north of Baghdad, Iraq STARLite Vision Small Tactical Radar-Lightweight (STARLite) gives warfighters highresolution imagery from unmanned aircraft systems and aerostats By Frank Colucci iniaturized Active Electronically-Scanned Array (AESA) radar gives the U.S. Army a widearea, near-all-weather surveillance sensor for the Grey Eagle Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) and the tethered aerostat Persistent Threat Detection System (PTDS). The Northrop Grumman STARLite was to deploy to Afghanistan aboard the PTDS in the first quarter of this year and will go to war on the Hellfire-armed Grey Eagle UAS in early 2012. Both platforms will downlink high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery and Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) data to United States jointservice and allied military forces. 24 Avionics Magazine May 2011 is an interoperable explained Phil Owen, lead engineer for UAS payloads at the Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) at Redstone Arsenal, Ala. is using exclusively Open NATO standards. Any other exploiter out in the field can utilize this data without special software. That makes a huge difference in The Ku-band radar works in strip mode to image a large area along a programmed path or in spot mode to take a close look at specific targets. Actual performance numbers for the new sensor are undisclosed, but the Army credits STARLite with greater than 40 kilometer range and better than 0.3 meter resolution. In addition, a GMTI mode is required to track vehicles moving from about 10 to 70 km/h on a digital map. A Dismounted www.avionicstoday.com Moving Target Indicator (DMTI) introduced on the PTDS uncovers enemies on foot, and DMTI software will become part of the baseline radar on the Grey Eagle as well. Every production Grey Eagle will carry the Northrop Grumman AN/ ZPY-1 radar and Raytheon AN/AAS-53 Common Sensor Payload. (Avionics, August 2008, page 24.) The radar covers a wide area and cues the electro-optical sensor to identify or laser-designate targets with two clicks at the station. a very Open Architecture-type of system, very said Joe Parsley, UAS and rotary wing systems senior manager at Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems (NGES). STARLite, you could be searching all day, if you had good