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Aviation History
1986
1986 - 0018.PDF
AVIONICS STL and ICL win VAD contracts LONDON Standard Telecommunication Laboratories (STL) and ICL have been awarded three UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) contracts worth nearly £17 million. Awarded under the second stage of the MoD's very high performance integrated cir cuit application demonstrator (VAD) programme, the five- year contracts cover develop ments in advanced radio and electronic counter-counter- measures (ECCM) and high speed parallel processing. STL will develop a battle field communications system that can be carried as a manpack. Using a recently developed unique radio tech nique called zero intermediate frequency it is hoped to provide a single transceiver capable of working with all types of current and future radio modes used in tactical military communications. Second of the three contracts covers development of a multi-purpose ECCM mode chip. This will be very high speed floating-point pro cessor purpose-designed to improve anti-jamming perfor mance using parallel process ing. The ICL contract calls for very large scale integration implementation of the com pany's distributed array processor (DAP) to reduce the size and power consumption of the hardware package. The ICL DAP is a large array of simple processors operating in parallel each with its own memory and operating to process data. Two prototypes of a military DAP with 1,024 simple processors are to be delivered shortly. Smaller distributed array processors will have a wider range of possible defence applications from ship sys tems to airborne missiles. ICL aims to cut DAP size by at least 75 per cent while improving performance by a factor of four. The VAD programme, which is funded equally by the MoD and the companies involved, is the UK equivalent of the VHSIC very high speed integrated circuit programme now running in the USA. BAe buys micro stake LONDON ~ British Aerospace has taken a $5m stake in a newly formed European silicon micro-elec tronics consortium. The initiative, which gives it a 7 per cent stake, is intended to preserve an independent source of custom-built silicon circuits at competitive prices. The consortium, European Silicon Structures (ES2), is headed by Robb Wilmot, former chairman of ICL. Elec tronics companies in Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland have also joined ES2. UK electronics concerns have yet to show interest, however. Wilmot says that ES2 will provide a fast prototyping and low-volume production ser vice to customers. The project, which "might have relevance to the European Eureka technology initiative," will be financed from private sources and by a number of European institutions. VAAC Harrier flies CRANFIELD ~~ A two-seat Harrier destined for the vectored thrust air craft advanced flight control (VAAC) programme being run by the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Bedford, has made its first flight from Cranfield. Delivery to RAE Bedford is set for the spring. Under a contract awarded in January 1983, the Cranfield Institute of Technology has installed a digital fly-by-wire flight control system in the aircraft, which will be used to test control concepts for British Aerospace's advanced vectored-thrust designs. Light Hawk flies by fibre The US Army's advanced digital/optical control system (Adocs) research programme into fly-by-light flight control has begun in earnest. The UH-60 Black Hawk Adocs testbed, dubbed Light Hawk and modified by Boeing Vertol to use optical signalling in lieu of mechanical or electrical links and flown via a sidestick controller, flew in November. PULSES Thorn-EMI Electronics has won a £1 million contract to supply two radar simu lators to the Royal Air Force for air traffic controller train ing. The equipment is to be operational by mid-1987 at RAF Shawbury in Shropshire. Rockwell-Collins claims that its Navstar global posi tioning system (GPS) receivers for the US armed forces will cost significantly less than the Government estimated in 1979: a single- channel manpack set 42 per cent less, a two-channel set 53 per cent less, and a five- channel fighter set up to 62 per cent less. Equipment will also be more reliable and easier to repair than specified by the Government, says Collins. In March the company received a contract potentially worth $434 million to build GPS receivers for the US military. Hazeltine is to supply sonobuoy receivers for US Navy P-3C Orion and S-3B Viking anti-submarine war fare aircraft. The initial $20 million production contract covers 43 ARR-78(V) ad vanced sonobuoy communi cations link receivers with options for a further 103. Texas Instruments is to develop a signal processor incorporating very high speed integrated circuits (VHSIC) for the imaging infrared Hell- fire missile seeker already under development for the US Army. The alternative VHSIC seeker electronics are expected to be smaller, require less power, and have a higher processing throughput. Nor malair- Garret is to supply lightweight operator's consoles to Thorn-EMI for use with the Skymaster airborne early warning radar, which will begin flight trials early this year in a Pilatus Britten-Norman Islander. The company is also sup plying cooling components for the radar, which is a deriva tive of the anti-submarine Searchwater. Texas Instruments is to develop a monolithic phased- array jammer under an almost $6 million US Air Force advanced development con tract. 18 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 4 January 1986
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