AeroVironment and the Lockheed Martin have announced an agreement to jointly pursue opportunities in unmanned aircraft system (UAS) development.

"At Lockheed Martin, we look forward to partnering with AeroVironment to potentially develop integrated solutions for the unmanned systems market," said Paul Lemmo, Lockheed Martin senior vice president, corporate strategy and business development.

"Using our expertise in systems integration and AeroVironment's knowledge of unmanned aircraft solutions, we will together look for opportunities to develop innovative technologies that create value for new and existing customers."

"Numerous customers are seeking persistent solutions for wide area applications, such as border surveillance and communications, that are much more affordable than those available previously," said Roy Minson, AeroVironment senior vice president and general manager of its Unmanned Aircraft Systems business segment.

"Lockheed Martin's broad systems integration expertise gives us the opportunity to work together and develop innovative, end-to-end atmospheric satellite systems built around Global Observer that deliver breakthrough capabilities to customers."

Lockheed Martin designs, develops, produces, supports and sustains a wide variety of manned and unmanned systems that span Group 1 to Group 5 unmanned aircraft systems along with a wide range of subsystems including: EO, IR, laser and EW payloads; and a family of Ground Control Systems (GCS) such as One System GCS, Common GCS, Mobile GCS and Expeditionary GCS.