Maritime Patrol UAV (Triton)

Triton is a maritime surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which is under developmental test and evaluation by the U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman, with an initial operating capability (IOC) planned for 2017.  Triton was flown cross-country (for the first time) from Palmdale, CA to Patuxent River, MD on 18 Sept 2014 in order to test the platform’s ability (1) to remotely receive and execute long-distance flight plans, and (2) to communicate with a simulated operational battlefield network during flight.

Use of HPCMP Resources

• Flight plans successfully received in Palmdale via a secure overlay to DREN (i.e. SDREN).
• Communication/tracking successfully conducted over a combination of SDREN and DREN.
• Distribution of test data post-flight shortened the time required to analyze data between test events (i.e., second cross country test flight was conducted on 24 October 2014 – 6 weeks after the first flight).

“The Triton Test Network (DREN, SDREN, NWTE) has been an integral part of the Triton program for well over 2 years...  The ‘network’ has been SOLID throughout [testing], and certainly was during the entire flight last night.” — Jeff Sappington, Triton Navy Lead Test Engineer (18 September 2014)

“Thank you all for the support tonight! We had a smooth flight and a flawless network.” — Paul Fisher, Network Engineer, Triton Integrated Test Team (24 October 2014)