ScanEagle is a long-endurance, fully autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle developed by The Boeing Company and the Insitu Group. As of February 2006 ScanEagle UAVs had surpassed 10,000 combat flight hours, all logged in less than two years while supporting U.S. Marine Corps and Navy operations. The UAV is based on Insitu’s Seascan miniature robotic aircraft and draws on Boeing’s systems integration, communications and payload technologies. It is four feet long, has a 10-foot wingspan and can remain on station for more than 15 hours. Planned variants of ScanEagle are expected to achieve 30 hours of in flight time on a single mission.
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Since being deployed with the First Marine Expeditionary Force in August 2004, ScanEagle has completed more than 10,200 flight hours in Iraq providing real-time imagery to tactical commanders. Deployed with the Navy since July 2005, ScanEagle has amassed in excess of 1,600 hours in support of Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) missions, and while conducting oil platform security in the Persian Gulf.
ScanEagle’s long-endurance capability and ability to provide critical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), flying from both land sites and ships, have proved it to be an affordable ISR system that can acquire high-value targets and provide situational awareness to those who need it.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom the UAV is employed as a forward observer to monitor enemy concentrations, vehicle and personnel movement, buildings and terrain. On board USS Cleveland, ScanEagle supported ESG activities in the Persian Gulf. It is also being deployed on a number of other Navy ships. Notable success has been achieved with ScanEagle identifying and targeting “suspicious” ships in the region. It has played a key role in protecting Iraq’s oil platforms by sending real-time images of enemy combatants to coalition force ships.
The ScanEagle system also has been used to support the UK Ministry of Defense’s Joint UAV Experimentation Programme (JUEP). During trials conducted off the coast of Scotland, ScanEagle was successfully launched and recovered aboard a Royal Navy warship, a UK first.
For a vehicle of its size, ScanEagle’s endurance and payload combination is unmatched. It can operate in harsh weather environments, including high winds and heavy rains - conditions that can keep other UAVs on the ground.
The payload includes either an electro-optical or infrared camera, both inertially stabilized. The gimbaled camera allows the operator to easily track both stationary and moving targets. Capable of flying above 16,000 feet, the UAV normally provides persistent low-altitude reconnaissance.
ScanEagle features unique launch and recovery systems. Takeoffs and landings are unaffected by terrain and other conditions such as crosswinds. It is launched autonomously via a pneumatic wedge catapult launcher and flies preprogrammed or operatorinitiated missions. A “Skyhook” system is used for retrieval with the UAV catching a rope hanging from a 50-foot high pole. The patented system makes ScanEagle runway-independent with a small footprint for launch and recovery ops.
A key design of ScanEagle is its internal avionics bay. The bay allows seamless integration of new payloads and sensors to meet emerging customer requirements, and ensures the vehicle will be able to incorporate the latest technology as it becomes available.
In December 2004, ScanEagle demonstrated high-speed wireless communications relay during a flight at the Boeing Boardman test range. Enabled by Harris Corporation’s National Security Agency-approved Type 1 Classified Sec-Net-11 Plus technology in its avionics bay, streaming video and voice-over communication were sent from a ground control station over a secure high-bandwidth network to ScanEagle 18 miles away. The data was then instantaneously relayed to ground personnel six miles from the UAV. This flight demonstrated the capability for troops on the ground to receive critical information and situational awareness in a secure environment, key elements in creating a network centric battlefield.
