Charles Lyons-Burt
BlueHalo will deliver a HIVE small unmanned aircraft system architecture to the U.S. Army under an initial $14 million contract.
The defense and aerospace technology provider said Thursday it is expected by the service branch to craft an artificial intelligence/machine learning-based sUAS in order to boost mission efficiency, sensor performance and cut down on cognitive demand from warfighters.
- “Our customers continue to turn to BlueHalo to achieve what has never been done before and HIVE is another excellent example of utilizing BlueHalo’s capabilities to do just that,” remarked BlueHalo CEO Jonathan Moneymaker, who is a first time Wash100 Award winner.
The contract is presented by the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office and is intended to satisfy an autonomous swarming capability that is not currently in its arsenal.
For the project, BlueHalo intends to harness its technical practices for manned and counter-unmanned systems, including research and development, engineering and fabrication and prototyping. The company will use these processes to create swarm logic capabilities, as well as communication systems and modernized technologies through a system-of-systems approach.
The commingled “HIVE” of proprietary sUAS systems will be constructed by BlueHalo in the U.S.
BlueHalo underwent significant growth in 2021, acquiring companies such as Citadel Defense, Intelligent Automation Inc. and Asymmetrik. Citadel Defense’s specialization in counter-unmanned aerial system technology and multimodal cUAS platforms will likely play a role in the company’s new Army contract duties.
