composites are also used in Insitu’s unmanned aircraft such as ScanEagle. “They came here for the lifestyle,” Jon Malmberg, a manufac-turing engineer at Insitu, said of the company’s founders. But they also had a vision for developing unmanned systems. “There’s a very deep-seated lifestyle that is mixed with this company’s roots.” Malmberg has worked at Insitu since 2010 but has lived in the area on and off for 20 years, attracted first by the windsurfing. Despite having a technology and engineering background working for a variety of large companies, Malmberg lived in a van near the Columbia River to pursue his passion. Gary Holder, a maintenance planner for Integrated Logistics Support, was one of the first 50 employees hired and has worked at Insitu for more than nine years. The U.S. Coast Guard veteran left his technology job in the Seattle area more than 20 years ago in favor of the Columbia River Gorge’s recreation opportunities, at times doing carpentry to support himself. Holder and other Insitu employees know the future has never been brighter for unmanned aircraft. “This is just the leading edge that we’re working on,” Holder said. “It’s a technology that’s ready to burst open.” In addition to the much bigger and more capable Integrator developed by Insitu, the company also has developed a modified ScanEagle with infrared technology that can see through dark, smoke, fog or haze, bringing daylight-quality imaging to night operations. “ScanEagle with our mid-wave infrared turret literally opens up the night,” said Curtis Chesnutt, senior vice president of ScanEagle programs. Meanwhile, the bigger Integrator is already in operations. It main-tains the same long endurance and small footprint of ScanEagle, but has reconfigurable bays to carry custom payloads. “Integrator’s extended capabilities allow missions to be equipped rapidly with the most advanced payload to suit unique mission objectives,” said Ryan Hartman, senior vice president of Integrator Programs. “In operational environments where change is the only constant, this level of versatility can be the key to mission success.” And there is more to come. Insitu is developing an imager that will enable unmanned aircraft to focus on a wide area, or zoom in for a closer look—at the same time. Chesnutt said the imager does the job of a 2.5-foot-long (0.8- meter) telescope in a device only 6 inches (15 centimeters) long. “Imager is a game-changer in the industry,” he said. “Its continuous optical zoom and picture-in-picture view enable operators, imagery analysts and commanders to simultaneously view a broad area on land or sea while zooming in on a specific object of interest.” This kind of innovation is what makes Insitu such an exciting place to work, said Mason Welp, an electronics technician who joined Insitu five years ago. He grew up in The Dalles along the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge and served 12 years in the U.S. Navy. “One of my favorite things about the company is that this technology is still in its infancy,” Welp said. “We’re like the Wright brothers or the auto industry 100 years ago.” n diane.l.stratman@boeing.com For more on Insitu and what Boeing is doing in the fast-growing unmanned systems business, see the July 2009 and July 2010 stories in Frontiers. PHOTOS: (Clockwise from far top left) Robert Dulka, left, Flight Operations fleet maintenance technician, and Nereida Ford, field service technician, place a ScanEagle on a launcher; Mike Daly, left, director of software, and Mason Welp, engineer, inspect a ScanEagle turret; Hannah Rasmussen, foreground, and Jennifer Sofinowski plot the navigation path for a ScanEagle flight in the ground control station; engineer Doug Miller, left, and electrical engineer Chris Erickson, both with Radio Frequency Communica-tions, run tests on the Integrator. BOEING FRONTIERS / JUNE 2013 29
Frontiers June 2013 Issue
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