RQ-7 Shadow Tactical UAV

摘要

The RQ-7A Shadow TUAV program is a UAV system to provide real-time reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition information to US Army brigades. TUAV suffered a series of misfortunes and false starts in the mid-1990s, becoming entangled by DoD insistence that the Army and Navy combine their tactical UAV requirements. After this led to a string of failures, in November 1998 the Joint Requirements Oversight Council gave the Army the go-ahead to proceed alone with the TUAV program. In late December 1999, the Army awarded a contract to AAI Defense Systems for their Shadow 200 UAV. The Army awarded a second LRIP contract for four systems on 30 March 2001, and a third in March 2002. A favorable Milestone Ⅲ decision was made on 25 September 2002 leading to an award of a full production contract on 27 December 2002. The system was first deployed with the 4th Infantry Division at Ft. Hood in 2002 and was operationally deployed in Iraq in 2003. Procurement funding for new systems concluded in FY08 and totaled around 470 aircraft and 117 systems. The Army is continuing to fund improvements in the TUAV system including increased payload, improved sensors, TCS improvements and other features, some of which are aimed at the new 2004 RQ-7B configuration of the air vehicle which has greater pay-load, fuel and endurance. The Army continues to acquire small numbers of RQ-7B aircraft through the modification funding line to make up for attrition. The Army plans to spend about $2 billion in FY10-FY19 to upgrade the RQ-7 force, with 74 of the 117 systems to be improved to the RO-7B(Ⅴ)2 standards.