Drone America and Kongsberg Geospatial have announced the integration of the Kongsberg Geospatial IRIS UAS situational awareness application into the Drone America Airspace and Sensor Awareness System (DAAWS).

Drone America, which specializes in designing and building “advanced long-range autonomous, multi-mission aircraft” with modular payloads for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight operations, developed the DAAWS system as part of its Advanced Ground Control Station, to give flight teams the ability to manage BVLOS flight operations safely and effectively.

The DAAWS system provides commercial UAS pilots with situation awareness, and an accurate picture of the airspace surrounding their UAS when operating it on long distance missions beyond their visual line of sight.

For more than a decade, Kongsberg Geospatial has been providing technology for military unmanned platforms. During that time period, the company has developed a variety of sensor integration and display technologies to provide situational awareness for UAS pilots conducting beyond line of sight operations, as well as for monitoring airspaces for unmanned traffic management and counter-UAS operations.

Kongsberg Geospatial’s IRIS display technology allows multiple UAS to be managed at the same time by a single operator, and provides “real-time calculation of aircraft separation and communications line-of-sight to enable BVLOS operations.” IRIS will provide the operator with real-time 2-D and 3-D visualization of airborne track and weather data, as well as geofencing capabilities.