WARRENTON, Va. --- Athena Technologies announced today that it has completed the delivery of eight GuideStar flight control units to Composite Engineering, Inc., Sacramento, CA. CEI selected Athena in August of 2003 to provide its GuideStar 111m as an autopilot sensor solution for the BQM-167A Aerial Target System.
Athena provided CEI with a ruggedized version of the GS-111m to meet the requirements of the BQM-167A program. The units are currently undergoing testing and evaluation at the CEI facility. The GuideStar 111m is a fully integrated, miniaturized, digital flight-control system. Combining integrated inertial/GPS navigation and a complete air data suite with robust, multi- variable control algorithms allows accommodation of smaller UAVs and target drones, such as the BQM-167A Aerial Target System. BQM-167A will use the GS- 111m as an integrated sensor suite for control and navigation.
BQM-167A is a high performance UAV/Target system developed and produced by CEI. The aircraft was selected in 2002 by the US Air Force for its next generation Air Force Subscale Aerial Target program. With an overall length of 20 ft and a wingspan just short of 11 ft, BQM-167A is capable of speeds in excess of.91 Mach, aggressive advanced maneuvers up to 9g’s and performance in an altitude envelope from 20 ft to 50k ft.
“Providing CEI with our GuideStar is exciting for Athena on many levels,” said Dr. David Vos, Athena’s CTO/CEO. “The GS-111m with its high speed, high resolution signal processing has proven itself as a flight control system and now has an opportunity to be used as an Autopilot sensor for the BQM-167A air vehicle.”
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Athena Technologies Delivers GuideStar Autopilot Sensor For CEI
