The Tactical Control System (TCS) is a group of protocols that govern the command and control system for

unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

s (UAVs).

History

Developed by EG&G Technical Services and

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

, starting in 1999, the Tactical Control System is designed to run UAVs in all branches of the

United States military The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...

as well as

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

STANAG 4586 compliant UAVs. Raytheon developed the systems to run on

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

s using a type of

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

called Solaris 8 from

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

. Raytheon also developed a system for the

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

operating system. According to the winning Raytheon bid for the development of the TCS system, it will feature: *Simultaneous control of multiple UAVs *Compliance with NATO's Standardization Agreement 4586 *Integration of plug and play payloads *Weaponization of the Fire Scout and Fire Scout operational evaluations

Testing

Raytheon was to undergo formal Operational Evaluation with Fire Scout in Fiscal Year 2008. Until then, tests to determine the progress of the system's development were ongoing. Positive results included: *December 2004 - A scaled down laptop version of TCS, the Multiple Vehicle Control System (MVCS), was able to control two UAVs flying over

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

simultaneously. The MVCS was also able to simultaneously control an unmanned surface vessel operating on

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near

Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. It had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Virginia, third-most populous city ...

. *January 2005 - The TCS system was able to complete a vertical shipboard landing on a moving target, the US Navy ship USS ''Nashville'', independent of any pilot. This was the first time such a feat had ever been achieved. *April 10, 2006 - Raytheon Company successfully simulated simultaneous command and control of two unmanned air vehicles (

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...

) and an unmanned surface vehicle from one common control system.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Navy article July 2006Raytheon wins contract
Unmanned aerial vehicles United States military aircraft