The

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator (UCAS-D) program consists of *

Northrop Grumman X-47A Pegasus The Northrop Grumman X-47 is a demonstration unmanned combat aerial vehicle. The X-47 began as part of DARPA's J-UCAS program, and is now part of the United States Navy's UCAS-D program to create a carrier-based unmanned aircraft. Unlike the ...

Northrop Grumman X-47B The Northrop Grumman X-47B is a technology demonstration, demonstration unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) designed for aircraft carrier-based operations. Developed by the American defense technology company Northrop Grumman, the X-47 proje ...

The UCAS-D program was to demonstrate the feasibility of operating an

unmanned vehicle An uncrewed vehicle or unmanned vehicle is a vehicle without a person on board. Uncrewed vehicles can either be under telerobotic control—remote controlled or remote guided vehicles—or they can be autonomously controlled—autonomous vehicl ...

on an

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...

. Technology and operational procedures gained from the program and X-47B demonstrator were used to develop an operational unmanned carrier aircraft through the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program. After debate over whether the UCLASS should primarily focus on stealthy bombing or scouting,

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...

instead changed the entire program into the Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) program. This new program intended to create an UAV for

aerial refueling Aerial refueling ( en-us), or aerial refuelling ( en-gb), also referred to as air refueling, in-flight refueling (IFR), air-to-air refueling (AAR), and tanking, is the process of transferring aviation fuel from one aircraft (the tanker) to an ...

duties to extend the range of manned fighters. This new project lead to the development of the aerial refueling drone, the

Boeing MQ-25 Stingray The Boeing MQ-25 Stingray is an aerial refueling Unmanned aerial vehicle, drone that resulted from the Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS) program, which grew out of the earlier Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike ...

References

Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States {{robotics-stub

See also

References