Architectures for Radiofrequency and Optronics sensors onboard Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (RPAS)

This work has been developed under the EDA contract no 16.ESI.OP.137 within the Electro Optical Sensors technologies Captech in EDA. In the Defence domain, the different assets are increasingly required to operate in a multi-role, multi-purpose manner within a wide range of possible missions, locations and operational environments. The sensors systems, both Radiofrequency (RF) and Electro-optic (EO), are in continuous development, and the next generation will be developed with multifunctional capabilities and increased performance, therefore new architectures should be define to handle this and to combine the information offered by them in the most effective way. This will provide the capability of operation in all weather, all time, difficult conditions with a broad range of threats immersed in strong clutter and electromagnetic interference (EMI) environments and the possibility to quickly adapt to each mission scenarios. The main goal is the definition of an Interoperable, Modular, Open and Scalable architecture (IMOSA) to achieve interoperability within payloads -mainly EO and RF sensors- for Class I Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) which can also be applied to Class II RPAS. The implementation of this architecture allows that a single RPAS will be able to carry a variety of sensors on-board, regardless of its manufacturer, including the maximization of sensor data fusion performance, enhancing the RPAS capabilities in hostile environments and the improvement in the payload sensors interoperability and integration properties together with a higher reliability, flexibility and a lower product life-cycle costs for both, manufacturers and final users. This study includes a review of the state of the art of the related technologies, the definition of scenarios, requirements and business cases to justify its implementation, the definition of an architecture and BB initially designed and the generation of a roadmap to implement this concept successfully in the next years. During the process, a Systems Engineering methodology based on TOGAF and NAFv3 was applied.