The US Naval Air Warfare Center – Aircraft Division (NAWCD) at Patuxent River, MD has announced its intention to issue a contract for Guardian Ground Based Detect and Avoid System (GBDAA) for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) operations. This requirement is to provide mission specific GBDAA computers to the Atlantic Test Ranges (ATR) in support of unmanned aircraft platforms and serves as a safety of flight critical system. As a safety critical system, development is required on and for safety, certified hardware must be safety certified with a custom designed Board Support Package (BSP) that meets only pre-tested Guardian specific mission requirements, on a robust hardware suite; which meets the DO-178C and MIL-STD-882E requirements, as well as customer, operational and system requirements in order to meet needed capabilities while maintaining system safety integrity.
These systems will be used to enhance aircraft test situational awareness and alleviate much of the visual observer and manned aircraft chase for flights in and between the Naval Air Station, Patuxent River restricted airspace.
According to the US government beta.SAM website:
“The Guardian program is currently using Mercury model: ROCK-2A000819R chassis to support this requirement and we need to purchase the same equipment already in use to ensure computability, and since it is the only tested and verified product that meets our stringent and specific requirement set. Any offeror will have to coordinate with Mercury systems to have these computer Chassis built to specification, as they are not commercial off the shelf items.”
(Image: NAWCD)
