Frazer-Nash has been awarded funding to further develop our work on Swarming Uncrewed Air System (SwUAS) capabilities. SwUAS involves multiple drones operating together as a unified system, often with a degree of autonomy, to deliver an effect. It is anticipated that the use of SwUAS will be a force multiplier for the RAF and wider UK MoD.
The funding has been provided by the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) on behalf of the RAF’s Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO). It’s part of a competition to support the widespread adoption of the PYRAMID Reference Architecture (PRA) for avionics and mission systems.
The PRA focuses on rapidly developing adaptable systems using a common modular open systems approach to improve compatibility with major air programmes and reduce time and cost. It is intended that new, or adapted existing, air system software applications will comply with the PRA.
Frazer-Nash will be developing a functional architecture to support future SwUAS operations using the PRA and focusing on a sub-set of operations. The team will employ an iterative systems engineering design process to progressively develop the SwUAS concept architecture in stages and ensure continuous compliance with the PRA. With our deep simulation expertise and tools, we’ll be incorporating synthetic testing throughout the development.
It’s a valuable opportunity to use the PYRAMID model in the way it was always intended and demonstrate new, ground-breaking capabilities that can be quickly deployed and spirally developed.
For more information on DASA, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/defence-and-security-accelerator
