Boeing says it has successfully shown that a single unmanned aerial vehicle operator can control several UAVs at once using its Distributed Information-Centralized Decision autonomous mission control software. In its demonstration, a single operator controlled three Scan-Eagle UAVs, receiving a “field-generated” target location from an Airborne Warning and Control System operator console that, in turn, requested video coverage of the target. The UAVs beamed the video back to the AWACS operator, who “tasked” a strike aircraft. Ed Froese, Boeing’s VP for ISR systems, said that the DI-CD would free UAV operators from “micro-managing the routes and other activities.”
The Air Force kicked off one of its biggest exercises this week with the latest edition of Bamboo Eagle, featuring combined virtual and live training scenarios focused on test the command-and-control “nervous system” leaders need to operate on a complex joint battlefield spread over vast distances.
