UAVs

Northrop Grumman has unveiled a low-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle – designated Killer Bee – under development as a low-cost force protection and extended surveillance aircraft optimised for operations in a highly networked environment.

The company-funded development programme began about 18 months ago. Fifteen all-composite aircraft have been built to date in two configurations. Northrop says both types are intended to carry an advanced avionics and navigation suite that has close parallels to the systems used on the RQ-4 Global Hawk.

Northrop says the flying-wing, diesel-engined design could result in a family of UAVs with spans ranging from 0.9m to 7.6m (3ft to 25ft). Air vehicle mission systems would be optimised for close integration with other unmanned systems in a battlefield environment. This includes an organic ability for multiple air vehicles to use swarming behaviour to perform more complex missions.

Killer Bee 1 (KB-1) has a 1.53m span. Eight aircraft have been built and accumulated 30 flying hours before the show. KB-2 has a 2m span, with five aircraft built. The KB-2 demonstrators have flown for 17h, 13h of which were undertaken with the UAVs operating with 95% autonomous capability. The flight campaign for both versions has been carried out at El Mirage, El Toro and Soggy Lake.

Extensive windtunnel testing has also been conducted. Northrop says that 120h of tunnel tests were focused on airframe performance, while a further 160h were carried out to examine heating and cooling effects.

The KB-2 has a gross take-off weight of 20.4kg (45lb), including a 3.2kg payload, and a projected endurance of 30h. The longest single KB-2 flight to date is 5h. Maximum demonstrated speed is 100kt (185km/h), but Northrop says it wants the UAV to be able to fly as slowly as possible to maximise its loiter potential. Arming options are also being looked at with possibilities including a payload bay for miniature-weapon delivery or fitting some UAVs out as loitering missiles.