Insitu Pacific Successfully Integrates McQ Sensor Technology with ScanEagle UAS

BRISBANE, Australia, Oct. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Insitu Pacific, the Australia-based subsidiary of Insitu Inc., announced today that it has successfully completed integration between its ScanEagle Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) and the McQ iScout Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) and OmniWatch technologies.

McQ is an industry leader in UGS technology and development with its UGS deployed in widespread service with the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Energy and a range of international customers. The McQ iScout sensor provides battlefield proven, covert, low power and long-endurance sensing capability with best in class, low false alarm rates.

Insitu Pacific engineers successfully integrated the ScanEagle UAS and the McQ UGS to enable UGS target detection alerts to be automatically displayed within ScanEagle's Insitu multiple UAS software environment (I-MUSE) operating system as new targets.

"This is an excellent demonstration of the operational flexibility of the systems that Insitu Pacific can provide, as well as the synergies that can be gained from linking UAS and UGS in complex surveillance scenarios," said Insitu Pacific Managing Director Andrew Duggan. "We believe this newly proven capability offers an ideal solution for flexible base or perimeter surveillance on operations in places like Afghanistan or in border protection type roles."

Once a target is detected, the iScout sensor automatically sends a notification to the UAS system operator by displaying the target location, detection type (seismic, magnetic, acoustic or infrared) and other relevant information on the ScanEagle operator's I-MUSE graphic user interface (GUI). The operator is then able to automatically focus the ScanEagle's sensors on the new contact to verify the data provided by iScout and OmniWatch and continue to track the target once it has moved beyond the OmniWatch camera range.

"The integration of McQ sensor technology with Insitu UAS will enable a rapid and simple enhancement of overall situational awareness for commanders in the field," said McQ Inc. President John McQuiddy. "McQ is pleased to be working with Insitu Pacific and we are excited to have our iScout and OmniWatch products integrated with ScanEagle on a technical and operational level."

Insitu Pacific, located in Queensland, Australia, has provided UAS services to defence, civil and commercial interests in the Asia-Pacific region since June 2009. Insitu Pacific is a subsidiary of US-based Insitu Inc.

Insitu Inc., located in Bingen, Wash., is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Company. Insitu designs, develops and manufactures UAS and provides associated services for commercial and military applications. With a small footprint and expeditionary focus for land and sea operations, the company's family of UAS solutions serves the needs of the global defence community. To date, these systems have accumulated over 650,000 combat flight hours and 72,000 sorties. For more information, visit www.insitu.com.

For more information contact: 

Dale McDowall 
Insitu Pacific
61-7-3613-9446 
[email protected]

Jill Vacek
Insitu Marketing
509-493-6439
[email protected]

SOURCE Insitu