ILA 2014: PREDATOR XP – Providing Persistent Surveillance and Enhanced Situational Awareness

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI), a leader in ISR technologies, is best known for development and production of the PREDATOR family of UAS that are in operation by numerous customers throughout the world today. Currently amassing more than 35,000 flight hours per month, GA-ASI UAS have accumulated over 2.7 million cumulative flight hours to date.

PREDATOR XP in flight. (Photo: General Atomics)

GA-ASI is currently in full production on its newest aircraft system, the PREDATOR XP UAS. PREDATOR XP exhibits the same physical dimensions, altitude, speed, and long endurance (up to 35 hours) as the original RQ-1 PREDATOR aircraft first flown by the USAF in 1995 and has been updated to include triple redundant avionics and an automatic takeoff and landing capability. The aircraft supports a broad customer export base, including Middle East, North African, and South American regions.
PREDATOR XP systems can be equipped with Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Beyond-Line-of-Sight (BLOS) data link systems for over-the-horizon operations. The aircraft is integrated with multiple ISR sensors, including state-of-the-art EO/IR cameras and GA-ASI’s wide-area search LYNX Multi-mode Radar. The LYNX radar features a state-of-the-art Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mode that offers all-weather, high resolution, day/night performance for a wide-area search capability. Its Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) mode provides a quick and easy method for locating moving vehicles. The radar’s Maritime Wide-Area Search (MWAS) mode provides the capability to complete a variety of maritime missions successfully, including coastal surveillance, drug interdiction, long-range surveillance, small target detection, and SAR operations. PREDATOR XP incorporates an Automatic Identification System (AIS) for maritime ship identification. Other new additions from the original PREDATOR are a new fault-tolerant tail design and winglets for increased endurance.

PREDATOR XP UAS features the CLAW integrated sensor payload control and analysis software with moving-map displays, cross-cueing of all on-board sensors, pre-mission planning, and post-mission sensor data analysis and exploitation.

Offering great ISR capabilities, PREDATOR XP is available now to support a variety of overland and maritime ISR missions for a wide array of countries.