Contractors vying to build ship-launched drone.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

* AeroVironment and Northrop Grumman are jockeying for the chance to build a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial system that can launch off the decks of small ships.

The program--known as the tactically exploited reconnaissance node, or TERN--is being developed jointly by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research. Smaller ships will serve as mobile launch and recovery platforms for medium-altitude systems.

"TERN's goal is to develop breakthrough technologies that the Navy could realistically integrate into the future fleet and make it much easier, quicker and less expensive for the Defense Department to deploy persistent ISR and strike capabilities almost anywhere in the world," said Dan Patt, a DARPA program manager in a press release.

In March, the agency chose AeroVironment and Northrop to participate in phase two of the program, which will focus on preliminary design and risk reduction. The winner of the third phase --which could be announced later this year--will go on to build a prototype and begin demonstrations, said Steve Gitlin, vice president of marketing and communications at AeroVironment.

Right now, smaller ships such as destroyers can only launch manned or unmanned helicopters off their decks. That limits how far the ship can see out, he said.

"DARPA's idea is to develop an unmanned aircraft...