Boeing has successfully demonstrated the company's newest narrowband communications relay aboard two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) - an Insitu ScanEagle and a portable AeroVironment Puma All Environment (AE).
The relay was designed to meet the needs of small distributed forces operating in areas where line-of-sight communications are not possible. It is the longest-range narrowband relay successfully flown in the Puma AE and ScanEagle platforms to date.
During the multiservice demonstrations, held in California in May and this month, UAVs flew at a variety of altitudes while linking handheld military radios dispersed over mountainous regions. The tests confirmed the relay's performance and versatility. Using the two UAV platforms extended the radios' range tenfold.
