The U.S. Army has installed at Fort Hood, Texas, the first of five planned ground-based sense and avoid (GBSAA) radar systems it will use to track unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) during training flights in the U.S. Fort Hood is home to two companies that operate the General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle.

“We are excited to finally see this come to fruition,” said Viva Kelley, the Army’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airspace Integration Concepts product director. “The whole team has been working hard on this program since its inception. [I]n the end, it will provide the Army with a safer and more effective way with which to conduct UAS training and testing.”

GBSAA provides a way for UAS operators to “see and avoid” other air traffic and represents an alternative means of complying with Federal Aviation Regulations Part 91.113 aircraft right-of-way rules. It consists of multiple subsystems, including generally two LStar three-dimensional air surveillance radars, a fusion tracker, target classifier and separation algorithms.

The system will initially support flights of UAS transitioning from military airfields in the national airspace system to restricted areas where the Army conducts training and testing missions. After Fort Hood, where the system will become fully operational next year, the Army plans to install GBSAA at Fort Riley, Kan.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; Fort Campbell, on the Kentucky-Tennessee border; and Fort Drum, N.Y. Operations in military operating areas—airspace designated for separate, nonhazardous military activities—“are in the very near future,” the service said December 15.

“The GBSAA system has exceeded all of its performance requirements, from the testbed to the full system concept demonstrations and follow-on testing,” said Col. Courtney Cote, UAS project manager.