DARPA Aiming To Share Breakthrough, Low-Cost Technologies
Tern, a joint program between DARPA and the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR), seeks to give forward-deployed small ships the unprecedented capacity to serve as mobile launch and recovery platforms for medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial systems (UAS). These systems would provide long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other capabilities over greater distances and time periods than helicopters and would require far less dedicated infrastructure resources than conventional fixed-wing manned and unmanned aircraft.