AAI Corporation, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced today that its Victoria, Australia-based strategic business, Aerosonde Pty Ltd, has participated in a series of demonstrations by Australia's Defense Science and Technology Organization (DSTO) aimed at investigating the capabilities of unmanned aircraft when integrated with electronic warfare (EW) systems.

The 15-day DSTO "Demonstration of Distributed EW Concepts" trial, which took place at the Woomera Test Facility in southern Australia, incorporated the Aerosonde small unmanned aircraft system. The Aerosonde aircraft completed more than 40 flights equipped with an EW payload, accumulating more than 200 flight hours in this configuration. Aerosonde's experienced staff also served as the flight crew during the test series.

Real and simulated unmanned aircraft interacted with several sensor systems during the demonstrations and completed tasks including geolocation and tracking of EW targets using their integrated EW payloads.

"As unmanned aircraft grow in capability and maturity, the range of missions they can handle also grows," says Vice President of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Steven Reid of AAI. "Small systems such as our Aerosonde unmanned aircraft deliver powerful benefits including long endurance and multi-mission capability. We will continue to see the mission profile of these aircraft expand, and we will stay ahead of these requirements to deliver customers the unmanned aircraft capabilities they need."