Adapting a Tier 2 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to Provide an Electronic Surveillance and Geolocation Capability

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate if it would be possible to integrate a developmental Radar Warning Receiver named “The Puffer” onto a Tier 2 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, and incorporate the Multifunctional Information Display System/Low Volume Terminal into the UAV‟s ground control station. This integration of systems would become a low cost platform that could provide an Electronic Surveillance and geolocation capability of known mobile threat systems. The results of this investigation showed that the Puffer could be integrated on to the Tier 2 UAV with minor modifications. To control and fully integrate the downlink messages from multiple UAVs plus add the capability to send the information out to other units over Link16 would require a major hardware effort with a sizable software integration effort. While this would be an extensive project, the results could be done at a significant cost saving compared to the manned platforms in use today.