GE Aviation has been awarded a contract by AAI Unmanned Aircraft Systems, an operating unit of Textron Systems, a Textron Inc. company (NYSE:TXT) to provide the stores management system for a demonstration involving Shadow.

The contract includes the engineering, manufacturing, installation and data development of GE's Stores and Payload Controller (SPC) used to control the new stores management system.

"The Stores and Payload Controller will provide additional tactical and operational ability for the user to accomplish their missions," said Todd Caccamo, global director, Mission Systems for GE Aviation. "The SPC has a standards-based architecture for a variety of current and future stores, making it a systems enabler for multiple platforms, manned or unmanned, in air, on land or at sea. It provides the user with a common product that streamlines cost."

GE Aviation provides the stores management system for the MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned helicopter and has provided mission/stores management solutions to a wide variety of military aerial platforms for more than 40 years. GE has delivered more than 4,500 systems to numerous fixed- and rotary-wing military aircraft operators worldwide.

The system is provided from GE's facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan.