SELEX Galileo, a Finmeccanica Company, has been awarded a 4-year contract for the Common Defensive Aids System Technology Demonstrator Programme (CDAS TDP). This important contract has been placed by the UK MoD to support the aims of the UK strategy for Air Platform Protection.
The TDP will be led by SELEX Galileo, based at Luton in the UK. The DAS Controller and architecture will be developed from the Company’s combat-proven HIDAS system and subsequent DAS upgrade programmes on UK MoD helicopters.
The main goal of the CDAS strategy is to implement a coherent, cross-platform approach to the acquisition and support of survivability equipment. The aim is to provide survivability according to platform and role while allowing capabilities to be easily upgraded to address changes in the threat environment or obsolescence. In parallel, the strategy addresses the needs to optimise through-life cost-effectiveness and provide the UK with operational sovereignty.
The CDAS TDP will develop an architecture that can easily integrate the different sensors and effectors that may be required for a given platform and role. A flexible, open-architecture approach with standardised interfaces will be developed, together with a common approach to programming. The outcome will be a coordinated, optimised response to threats based on the various sensor and effector capabilities fitted to the platform.
The architecture will be used to demonstrate additional operational capability that builds on the use of existing inservice equipment with the addition of new sub-systems, developed such as SELEX Galileo’s new ECLIPSE Pointer Tracker and IRCM laser. The objectives are to demonstrate, through bench and flight trials, the combined and coordinated capabilities of missile warning systems, hostile fire indicators and Directed Infra-Red Countermeasures (DIRCM).
The award of this contract to SELEX Galileo is an important step towards implementing the UK MoD’s strategy for Air Platform Protection whilst also giving an opportunity for the companies involved in the programme to cooperate and demonstrate the capabilities of their products.