McMurdo has received a contract from the US Army to design a personnel recovery device (PRD) that could improve soldier search and rescue (SAR) efforts.

Under the contract, the company will provide working prototypes of a custom PRD to the army.

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The PRD is a militarised personal locator beacon (PLB) that will be integrated with the army's personnel recovery support system (PRSS).

"We look forward to providing a PRD that reflects our 34-year legacy of delivering search and rescue PLBs."

McMurdo's PRD will offer a dual-mode capability for training and providing operational distress signals.

It will raise an alert if a soldier is isolated, missing, detained or captured, McMurdo said in a statement.

McMurdo aerospace, defence and government programmes general manager Mark Cianciolo said: "The army recognised a need to complement its PRSS with a dual mode, easy-to-use distress beacon to provide initial report / locate functionality, even in remote locations.

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"We look forward to providing a PRD that reflects our 34-year legacy of delivering search and rescue PLBs."

According to the company, PRD that is being delivered meets specific requirements established by the army.

In August, McMurdo was contracted to deliver 16,000 units of FastFind 220 PLBs to the US Coast Guard.

Part of Orolia Group, McMurdo provides end-to-end solutions for SAR and maritime domain awareness.

The company has installed 50% of the world's SAR satellite ground infrastructure and manufactured 25% of the world's 500,000 registered beacons.

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