SES: Ministry of Defence - Jindivik Remote Piloted Target Drone

In 1994 SES were awarded prime contractor status for the fixed price development and manufacture of a telecommand and telemetry system for the newly procurred Jindivik Mk4A-900 aircraft fleet and the associated ground test equipments. This was the largest contract that SES had

ever been awarded (£2.5 Million), and required close cooperation between SES, the Australian manufacturers of the aircraft (ATSA) and the Ministry of Defence.

In recognition of the expertise possessed by SES, MoD(PE) awarded SES design authority status (Def Stan 05-123) for all ground control and aircraft equipments that are part of the programme. Under this award SES are recognised as:

"Design Authority on behalf of MoD(PE) for PCM Telecommand and Telemetry equipment for use in airborne and ground station installations and associated Data Acquisition, Instrumentation and Test Equipment under Ministry of Defence contract ... and any further contracts of a similar nature."

SES provided all of the ground control and airborne communications equipments, as well as first and second line test equipments for proving the correct operation of equipments at various stages before aircraft flight.

SES have been contracted by FRA-SERCO (The airfield operator) to provide Post Design Support services for all installed equipments.

The Jindivik System.

• Airbourne Equipment

  The Jindivik airborne equipment provides dual redundant control and monitoring of all aircraft functions. Using an RF frequency datalink the airborne equipment comprises 2 main functional elements

  • A Command Decoder Unit (CDU) which interprets all pilot commands uplinked to the aircraft and asserts the commands to the flight control computer. The CDU behaves as an airborne datalink processor (ADLP) using an SES proprietary communications protocol.

  • A Telemetry Encoder Unit (TEU) which captures all data from aircraft sensors and sub-systems for transmission via the downlink to the pilot position in the ground station.

• Groundstation Equipment

  The Jindivik pilot groundstation provides all the facilities that a pilot needs to remotely control and monitor all functions of the Jindivik Mk 4A 900 aircraft. Command encoder, decoder and translator units are used to construct commands that are passed to the aircraft and decode telemetry information from the aircraft.

• Ground Test Equipment

  Two types of ground test equipment are provided. First Line Test sets provide an ability to exercise all control equipments in situ in the aircraft equipment bay. Second Line Test equipments allow the avionics equipments to be fully tested through extremes of operating conditions in a benchtop environment.