This device allows a drone to target enemies without a shooting radar

The American aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin has just developed a new atypical device. It’s about Legion Pod, a 2.5-meter long gimbal with an infrared sensor that tracks a target. More precisely, this device allows a drone to engage enemy aircraft autonomously and without firing radar.

Indeed, acquiring a target during air combat generally requires the use of a radar. However, this radar may have been taken out of service by enemy forces. But Lockheed Martin’s Legion Pod could still engage a target.

Credit: Lockheed Martin

The device is both quick and easy to install on drones

Remember that the acquisition of a target or the acquisition of an objective is the detection, identification and localization of a target in sufficient detail to allow the effective use of lethal and non-lethal means.

With this Legion Pod device, a stealth-capable drone produced by General Atomics called Avenger made several completely autonomous target acquisitions in early July in southern California. Note that the installation of the Legion Pod on the drone does not require major modifications to the technical equipment on board the aircraft. In addition, three months would have been enough to associate the device and integrate its software into the mission management system of the Avenger drone.

Nevertheless, Lockheed Martin nevertheless stressed that a drone equipped with the Legion Pod must evolve in conjunction with other manned aircraft. In addition, this military drone would not yet be autonomous, even in takeoff and landing maneuvers. Its piloting would effectively require at least two people on the ground, including a pilot.