New Payloads for ScanEagle UAV Revealed

Derivatives of the ScanEagle UAV are proliferating, as Boeing exploits its ownership of Insitu, the company that originally designed it for commercial applications. At the Navy League convention, Boeing Phantom Works unveiled the MagEagle, a UAV equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector (MAD).

The MagEagle (pictured in full-scale model form) could autonomously localize and track a submerged submarine in deep or littoral waters, according to Boeing. It uses the compressed carriage design that Insitu revealed last year for box-launch from warships, but which is equally adaptable to air-launch. A Boeing official told AIN that the concept is on offer to the U.S. Navy “in case they change their minds over not having a MAD sensor on the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft.”

Meanwhile, Insitu revealed that it is adding a “NanoSAR” to the ScanEagle. Carried in a second payload situated aft of the EO/IR sensor in the nose, the 15-watt, X-band system provides strip maps to a typical resolution of one meter via an onboard processor.