General Atomics Aeronautical Systems announced last week that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with International Golden Group, a leading Middle East weapons supplier, to offer the export version of the Predator remotely piloted aircraft to the United Arab Emirates. The US government last year granted General Atomics a license to sell Predator XP abroad. Though the XP version cannot carry weapons, it embodies the same flight characteristics and intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance competencies as the original unarmed RQ-1 Predators that the US Air Force operated. Predator XP can carry a variety of export-cleared sensors, such as General Atomics’ Lynx radar and cameras spanning multiple spectra. (See also Flight International report)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine said the U.S. needs to prepared for future conflicts in which its adversaries will be able to closely track the location of American forces and attack with autonomous systems that use artificial intelligence.
