Drone Aviation Holding Corp., a manufacturer of specialized tethered aerial monitoring and communications platforms serving national defense and homeland security customers, announced today that it has successfully completed the customer-requested development, testing and delivery of an advanced video distribution upgrade kit for currently fielded Winch Aerostat Small Platform (“WASP”) systems.
The new plug and play kit provides the ability to distribute full motion video captured from the WASP’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) sensor simultaneously to a dismounted soldier’s mobile device utilizing the Android Tactical Awareness Kit (ATAK) as well as operators at the tactical operations center (TOC). All electronics design, architecture and integration into the WASP was completed at the Company’s Jacksonville headquarters facility and follows Program Executive Office (PEO), Project Manager Tactical Radio (PM TR) and PEO Soldier Nettwarrior standards. The upgraded equipment has been shipped to the customer for integration into a WASP system currently deployed overseas.
“Drone Aviation is honored to be selected by our Army customer to expand the capability of WASP by providing deployed soldiers with secure video directly on their existing handheld devices,” said Dan Erdberg, CEO and President of Drone Aviation. “Through continual enhancement and the ability to adapt to changing technology and mission requirements, WASP further differentiates itself and delivers value to our customers. We look forward to making this important new technology available and to bringing this expanded capability to our warfighters.”
The WASP is a highly tactical and mobile aerostat system which can be operated by as few as two soldiers and can provide day/night video, secure multi-frequency and multi-wave form wireless communication range extension capability at the edge of the battlefield from either a stationary position or while being towed. Over the past four years, U.S. Army-owned WASP systems have successfully completed thousands of hours of soldier training operations, various DoD exercises, and customer operations. WASP is currently being utilized by the DoD as a mobile, tactical aerial solution that can support multi-mission profiles involving ground and aerial-based assets through communication retransmission. Operating at altitudes of up to 1,500 feet AGL, the WASP system can significantly extend ISR capabilities and secure communications in remote and austere locations. The soldier-operated systems can be rapidly configured to support a variety of mission requirements for days, weeks or months with customized payloads.
