Soldiers Help Develop New Unmanned Aircraft

Noelle Wiehe

Students of the Maneuver Captains Career Course at Fort Benning, Ga.,evaluated an InstantEye unmanned aerial system (UAS) to aid in the advancement of a new generation.

InstantEye Mk-2 Gen 3, by Physical Science Inc., is a small UAS able to be launched by hand with vertical takeoff and landing, said Art Petit, training and services manager for InstantEye. The system demonstrates integrated squad-level airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance with the ability to provide a cursor on target and battle damage assessment, according to a release on Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiments of 2015.

InstantEye Mk-2 Gen 3 was designed directly from feedback from Soldiers, Petit said. Most in attendance had already been exposed to the system and gave positive feedback, but with their feedback PSI Technology is constantly developing new and improved versions of the system.

“Bottom line behind the aircraft’s design is it wasn’t designed in a vacuum by a bunch of engineers; it was designed by the guys that get their boots dusty on the ground every day” Petit said.

Being prior Infantry, Petit emphasized the advantage of having a third-eye perspective as a ground Soldier where it may not have existed before because of priorities not going to ground Soldiers.

“That’s really important for the safety and force protection of the Soldiers ” Petit said.

CPT Brett Matzenbacher, small group leader of the MCCC, compared the system to the Raven, a rucksack-portable UAS currently used in combat overseas.

“I like the Raven because it is something I own,” Matzenbacher said. “Pretty much every aspect of performance I can think of (makes InstantEye) superior to what we currently have at the company level”

Read more about the InstantEye at http://www.army.mil/article/139281/Aerial_system_could_enhance_capabilities.

(Noelle Wiehe writes for Fort Benning’s Bayonet & Saber newspaper.)