Mission Management

Effective modern aircraft operations demand the ability to match ever changing mission criteria both quickly and in real time. These highly dynamic situations whether in asymmetric warfare or search and rescue not only need to plan rapidly on the ground but also to be able to continue to optimise as they fly in the battlespace.

A diverse range of expertise and solutions to support aircraft planning, management and control can be offered building on our extensive research and development experience. Simple flight planning aids based on handheld PC technology with commercial GPS receivers to sophisticated automatic flight planning, routing, visualisation and rehearsal systems which interface with avionics.

Aids for private flying, through more advanced systems for business/commercial use, to support for military systems such as Typhoon. Solutions can be provided in conjunction with industrial partners or independently as appropriate. These can be prototype systems, methodologies, multi-source integration.

Fixed wing airborne mission management
The fusion of tactical data, mission plan and geospatial data for improved decision support and situational awareness together with real time management of information. Uses a common geographic data architecture to maximise consistency and operational utility. Includes sensor augmentation using mission and geospatial data.

Rotorcraft on board mission planning systems
Rotorcraft are deployed in many different type of operations each requiring varying degrees of decision making. Support, reconnaissance, attack and airborne early warning being prime examples. We have developed onboard mission planning systems and solutions

HIFACT – an acoustic mission planning for helicopters, is a specific PC software based tool which enables the user to calculate the chance of helicopters being heard on the ground by hostile forces during operations. Knowledge of the mission parameters, terrain and meteorological conditions are taken into account to determine the extent of the acoustic footprint on the ground and overlaid onto a map.

Knowledge based decision support systems
These can be used alongside existing mission systems (such as onboard) to provide the operator with appropriate advice and options in order to reduce workload and increase capacity. We have in-depth knowledge of AEW equipment, tactics and doctrine.

Experience in knowledge acquisition including knowledge model development for decision support leading to increased mission performance and effectiveness. Also management of large scale knowledge based decision support systems programmes.

Information fusion
We have produced novel solutions to the integration of mission system, sensors, human machine interface and C4I environment using data and information fusion (DIF) algorithms/systems for the airborne environment. Complex DIF systems have been built. Evaluation undertaken using analysis, synthetic environments and live trials.

Air to Ground Targeting
Work in this area has involved:-

• Weapon aiming
• Forward Air Control equipment
• Aircraft tactical datalinks
  Full engagement modelling
• Turnkey trials organisation

DesCAT - This data exchange system for control and targeting allows communication between a FAC and any improved data modem (IDM) equipped aircraft to provide real time target prosecution management. There is a laptop version for maximum capability and performance and a PDA version for minimum payload.
The user specifies the aircraft type to which the message is to be send and DesCAT does the rest shortening the time-line from sensor to shooter.

Electro-optic systems
Expertise is available for:-

• Airborne electro-optic sensor systems for targeting and piloting
• Design, build and test of prototype sensor systems
• Image and signal processing
• Modelling and simulation

Forward Portable GPS mission platform
Ground based plans can be transferred to the airborne environment using our portable mission planners with GPS. These provide a low-cost, stand alone commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) platform facility for mission rehearsal, training and debriefing in the form of a COTS Notebook type PC with stand-alone GPS.

Maritime Patrol Aircraft Mission Systems
QinetiQ excels in maritime patrol aircraft mission systems including maritime airborne signal processing and sonobuoy systems. This covers actual operations, trials and all types of analogue and digital sonobuoy data. QinetiQ acts as the technical authority for all UK sonobuoys in development and production. We use Lorelei - an acoustic data processing and display system for locating and tracking submarines and SDADS a versatile self-contained, cost effective tool to capture and process digital sonobuoy data.