Sea Bat is the maritime derivative of Northrop Grumman's Bat unmanned air vehicle. Northrop acquired the Bat product line (previously called the KillerBee) from Swift Engineering in 2009. Bat's blended body design allows it to carry a larger payload (100 pounds and 6 cubic feet for the "
"Bat 12+2") than similarly-sized UAVs. Bat is beyond-line-of-sight capable and can support a variety of payloads for missions including communications relay, signals intelligence, electronic warfare (EW), search and rescue, and port or maritime surveillance. The UAV has been produced with both 10 foot and 12 foot wing-span versions.
Bat is launched from ship or shore using the same rail-based system as the AAI shadow and recovered with a net.
17 November 2012 - Bat shipboard launch and recovery flight testing. Northrop Grumman Video.