L-3 Wescam is launching a new version of its lightweight MX-10 EO/IR turret here at Farnborough. The MX-10D includes a target designator and has already been tested at the Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona, mounted on an MD500E armed helicopter equipped with Hellfire missiles.
Wescam pushes boundaries of full-motion video quality by Chris Pocock Airborne full-motion video technology (FMV) is advancing so fast that the NATO standard (STANAG 4609) cannot keep pace, according to George DeCock, director of international EO/IR sensors, L-3 Wescam. The digital revolution has been closely followed by high-definition TV, uncooled infrared detectors, fouraxis stabilization and processing and display innovations.
In the meantime, the seemingly insatiable demand for FMV on every kind of platform–from small UAVs to helicopters to big transports–has attracted plenty of competitors offering sensor balls. But in terms of variety of products and customers, Wescam retains a leadership position. When that NATO STANAG was last revised in October 2009, it stated that the desirable goal of 1920- by 1080-pixel
Wescam Devices Operate on More Than 70 Aircraft
Operator
Aircraft
Wescam Product
Australian Customs
Dash 8
MX-15
Austrian National Police
EC135 helicopter
MX-15Hdi
Canadian Armed Forces
CH-146 helicopter
MX-15Hdi
Catalunya (Spain) Police
AS355F helicopter
MX-15i
Jordan
S-100 Camcopter UAV
MX-10
Latvian Air Force
Mi-17 helicopter
MX-15i
Norwegian Air Force
P-3 Orion
MX-20
UK Royal Navy
Lynx Wildcat helicopter
MX-15D
U.S. Air Force
MC-130
MX-15
U.S. Navy
P-3 Orion
MX-20
L-3 Wescam
Wescam lists no fewer than 33 different fixed-wing aircraft and 38 helicopters to which its sensor balls have been fitted, including UAS. They have also been fitted to airships, hybrids and aerostats. According to L-3’s annual report, the integrated sensors business–mostly Wescam– achieved $775 million in sales in 2011. Here is a selection of L-3 Wescam customers.
The range of L-3 Wescam sensor balls is seen here.
Synergies Between Systems and Platforms Start to Pay Off for L-3 L-3 Communications CEO Michael Strianese has been urging the focus of L-3’s marketing efforts. “We see this as a truck,” said Gautier. various divisions of this diverse defense systems and services group “It’s highly capable and, in its class, offers significant payload and weight to collaborate more fruitfully. A prime example of this has been L-3’s capacity. This is a real discriminator.” expansion into the unmanned air systems (UAS) sector, allowing it to offer Gautier maintains that L-3 has started to get some recognition in more flexible platforms for its products in the fields of C3 ISR (command, the highly competitive and very dynamic UAS sector by offering greater control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) flexibility and adaptability for changing missions by having platforms that and electronic systems. It also offers the manned Spydr ISR platform. provide greater operational endurance and scope for expanding payload The U.S.-based group can now fairly claim to be a fully integrated at competitive prices. Research-and-development efforts have focused on UAS platform provider, which better enables it to compete with other finding ways to adapt UAS fuselages and empennages in ways that allow defense groups prominent in different sensors to be fitted. The Viking 400 is L-3’s mid-tier offering in the unmanned systems this field from North America, The main Viking 400 payload sector. The company has been working at ways to make Europe and Israel. The largest is the MX-10 EO/IR sensor with both fuselages and empennages of this and other platforms member of its UAS family is the full-motion video (see main s tory). more adaptable in terms of payload that they can carry. medium-altitude, long-endurance “It is a system for expeditionary (MALE) Mobius, which it has forces and can take other payloads, been demonstrating and develallowing us to exploit the majority of oping since 2009. mission areas,” said Gautier. However, Todd Gautier, presAt the light end of the UAS ident of L-3’s Precision Ensector, L-3’s portfolio was expandgagement Sector, told AIN that ed by the acquisition a few years Mobius is not currently the ago of Airborne Technologies, a group’s most immediate market specialist in small, expendable sysprospect, with defense customer tems. The only publicly displayed attention shifting to medium-altitude, smaller systems. “Mobius is ready product in this line has been the Cutlass. to go [into service] but where we see the market right now is that U.S. In budget-constrained times, part of L-3’s UAS research-and-develforces are pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan and so requirements for opment effort has been to make systems easier to operate and mainMALE [aircraft] will come down,” he said. “It is still a great hope for the tain, as well as more versatile through greater integration of systems future and, as we move away from the current war footing, the focus is and subsystems. Other work has focused on reducing the weight and more on the cost of systems. Mobius has always been a significant val- power requirements of UASs so that smaller systems can do work that ue play for customers because you get a lot for a very attractive price. It previously has been the domain of larger UAVs. There is also now a will become more successful.” greater emphasis on interoperability of the systems carried by the For now, the new Viking 400 mid-tier UAS that has evolved from an UASs and other battlefield platforms–an approach made possible by earlier platform with more than 10,000 flight hours in service is the main greater use of common interfaces. –C.A.
34 Farnborough Airshow News • July 9, 2012 • www.ainonline.com
high-definition motion imagery was still five years away. In fact, it is already available. As DeCock noted, many of us have HD TV screens in our living rooms now. “The future is 1080p...you need only a two or four times zoom to get a great result,” he said. “Today’s HD sensors allow a precise count of illegal immigrants, and an ability to identify exactly who are their facilitators,” said Hugo Zeler of CAE Aviation. This Luxembourg-registered company, which has no connection to flight training group CAE, specializes in contract ISR flying for European agencies and governments, using Wescam turrets fitted to Casa 212s, Merlins, BN-2Ts and Cessna 208s. Zeler also praised advances in infrared sensors that, for instance, “now make it easy to detect oil spills.” Those infrared advances include new detectors that don’t need the tubing and wiring associated with cryogenic cooling, and an extension from the original longwave into mid-wave and now even shortwave (LWIR, MWIR and SWIR). As for resolution, DeCock said true HD IR is now in prospect. “We’re not there yet, but it’s almost already as good as lowlight TV,” he added. Size and Aperture
Miniaturization is another factor. Wescam began by developing the 21-inch diameter MX-20 turret, which weighs 200 pounds. Now, it also offers the 16.5-inch MX-15 weighing 100 pounds and the 10.25inch MX10 series weighing just 37 pounds. The number of sensors that can be packed into the turrets has increased. For instance, the MX-15Di offers 10, including daylight and lowlight zoom and spotter TV, a thermal imager, plus laser rangefinder, illuminator, spot tracker and designator. Even the MX-10 offers up to six sensors. But size does still matter, according to DeCock, and so does aperture. “The bigger the turret, the better the range,” he noted. Today, Wescam describes the