PDW unveils multi-mission payloads for C100 drones

WASHINGTON — PDW has announced a new three-pronged set of multi-mission payloads for its C100 unmanned platform.

Those multi-mission payloads — each distinct, modular variants that forces can mix and match depending on their environment or mission — allow for greater flexibility and survivability on the battlefield in contested or GPS denied environments, according to the company.

They include:

A spectrum awareness tool in partnership with CACI Mastodon for direction finding to better understand signals of interest in the environment for better situational awareness, threat mitigation and operational flexibility;A communications relay in partnership with Silvus for a mesh networking capability to extend the communications of a variety of different radios, critical at the edge in instances where it can be difficult to put a signal out father, especially in mountainous terrain or electronic warfare environments, and;An assured position, navigation and timing capability using video cameras based upon satellite images to navigate when GPS is denied or jammed.

“Any military unit operating in contested environments would benefit from these capabilities and we are actively producing and ready to deliver on this need,” Ryan Gury PDW CEO and cofounder, said in a release.  

PDW has previously scored a $20 million contract with the Army to provide its C100 drones to transformation in contact units. TiC aims to speed up how the Army buys technologies and designs its forces by providing units with emerging capabilities for experimentation during exercises and deployments.

In an interview with Breaking Defense, Gury noted that the multi-mission payload concept was derived from the company’s work with the Army and TiC units.

“The idea of the TiC program is getting feedback from the customer, iterating on their work as fast as possible. In this instance, these MMPs were something that TiC has really helped foster and it’s just an awesome way of working together in a world where velocity is so pertinent,” he said. “TiC has been really beneficial to companies like ours.”