WASHINGTON - Delivery drones are delivering supplies to marines in combat, allowing emergency food and ammunition deliveries in a short amount of time. The autonomous drones can carry 60 pounds of cargo and fly up to six miles away. The delivery drones are a part of the Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft System’s (TRUAS) $225,000 competition, reports Josh Spires for DroneDJ.com. Continue reading original article.
The Intelligent Aerospace take:
February 26, 2020 -"We learned a lot about where industry is in terms of design maturity and what our requirements need to be,” said Col. John Neville, Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical UAS (PMA-263) program manager, who oversees the TRUAS small Unmanned Logistics Support – Air effort. “It was great to have Marines, our acquisition leads and industry in one place to really get a sense of where we need to be and what the next step is for the TRUAS effort."
The program office’s next step is to complete the analysis of the companies’ systems and potentially use an Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) to procure prototypes within fiscal year 2020, said TRUAS Team Lead Christina Petrow. OTAs are sometimes used within the DoD to carry out prototype, research and production projects.
If the TRUAS demonstration prototypes meet the fleet’s requirements, the Marine Corps could begin conducting field user evaluation on the prototypes as early as FY2021, she said.
“"The fly-off prize challenge has been a great rapid acquisition effort that allowed us to evaluate the existing technologies within a short time period,” Petrow said. “We have a better sense of what is available, affordable and viable for the Marine Corps."
Related: Airbus begins 'shore-to-ship' trials with its Skyways parcel delivery drone
Related: Silent Arrow cargo delivery drone unveiled at DSEI
Related: CAU and Flytrex to begin delivering food via UAS in NC
Jamie Whitney, Associate Editor
Intelligent Aerospace
