The Ministry of Defense turns to GMV for the ground technology of the MQ-9 Predator B drones

The World ATM Congress, held in Madrid from 12 to 14 March, was a showcase for the latest air-traffic-management (ATM) advances, both in the civil and military field. Among them, the Spanish technology multinational GMV has developed for the Spanish MoD the ground segment systems for capturing, storing and distributing information from the unmanned aerial vehicles MQ-9 Predator B, to be used from this year onwards in intelligence and surveillance missions. Drones, notably, now have a growing world market value in the military sector. The latest “ASD Reports”, analyzing the markets of the United States, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America, puts the current value at over 7 billion euros.

In late 2015 the Spanish MoD bought from General Atomics two ground control stations and four aircraft, worth in all 158 million euros. The first two drones and the two ground control stations will be received as from this coming summer; the third drone will arrive at the end of 2019 and the fourth and last in 2020. The MQ-9 Predator drones were chosen by the Spanish MoD because they are already in operation in other NATO countries like the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands; this will make it easier to train up their pilots and share equipment on international missions, as need be.

These Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPASs), generically known as drones or Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs), will come into operation in the airbase of Talavera la Real (Badajoz). Unlike the many tactical RPASs currently flown by the Ministry of Defense, these four new vehicles are the first of the strategic type. The MQ-9 Predator B will be supporting permanent missions on national territory, such as strategic monitoring in the areas of intelligence, surveillance and maritime security or defense, aerial operations, humanitarian crises, border control and surveillance, firefighting, the fight against terrorism and organized crime, etc.

The MQ-9 Predator B drones are 11 meters long with a wingspan of 20 meters; they can reach a speed of 444 kph; their service ceiling is 15 kms and they can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week without being seen from earth, transmitting information in real time.

The MQ-9 Predator B carries no air-to-ground missiles. These capacities will be covered by the Euromale system, a European long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft project involving Germany, Italy, France and Spain.

How information from unmanned aircraft is operated on the ground

Ricardo Sáenz Amandi, GMV’s Defense & Security Programs Manager, explained how the MQ-9 Predator B drones, to work as an unmanned aerial system, call for a certain infrastructure: ground control stations (GCS), electro-optical assemblies, radars, identification systems, satellite communications and information equipment, a de-icing system and flight-collision avoidance systems, plus specialists in intelligence and image analysis. The GCS has two posts wielding direct control over the aircraft: the pilot and sensor operator.

For the Directorate General of Armaments and Material (Dirección General de Armamento y Material: DGAM) of the Spanish MoD, GMV has developed the ground segment systems in charge of capturing, storing and distributing information from unmanned aircraft used on surveillance and intelligence missions.

These systems, known as Coalition Shared Databases (CSDs), receive images, real-time videos plus radar tracks and GMTI tracks and enable all this information to be distributed in real time to the armed force’s intelligence and surveillance centers. The solution developed by GMV, going under the name of CSD-SIERRA, is now in service with the Spanish MoD and NATO’s intelligence centers.

The CSD-SIERRA systems are compliant with all NATO interoperability standards and have been validated on several multinational exercises with multi-vendor UAVs, including those with the highest performance features like Global Hawk.

To prepare for the arrival in Spain of the first MQ-9 Predator B drones, GMV has already rolled out part of the CSD-SIERRA system network, enabling information from these aircraft to be used by the armed force’s intelligence centers and distributed in real time to other surveillance and security support organizations.