§ Lord Astor of Heverasked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have for enhancing the capabilities of Watchkeeper by incremental acquisition after its initial entry into service. [HL2507]
§ Lord BachWatchkeeper is expected to be delivered through an incremental delivery programme to allow the system to benefit from both existing and developing sensors and air vehicle technology. The programme will develop from an initial operating 99WA capability to a full operating capability with timescales to be set at the main investment decision planned for later this year.
§ Lord Astor of Heverasked Her Majesty's Government:
What constraints there are on the transmission by Bowman of streamlined video images provided by Watchkeeper. [HL2508]
§ Lord BachAlthough its approved requirement does not provide for the transmission of streamed video, Bowman has a high-capacity data capability to handle and distribute compressed images and other data extracted from such sources. The effective transmission of data across the Bowman networks is a function of the size of the data file and the bandwidth available at the time.
§ Lord Astor of Heverasked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans they have for making Watchkeeper available to warships of the Royal Navy. [HL2509]
§ Lord BachWe expect unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to be a joint capability for the joint battlespace supporting a network enabled capability. At this stage we envisage them operating primarily within the land environment but we are exploring the wider operational untility of UAV systems in the joint battlespace, including the maritime environment, through the joint UAV experimentation programme (JUEP).