The consortium MIDCAS, consisting of 13 industrie europee – including Alenia Aeronautica, SELEX Galileo, SELEX Communications and SELEX Integrated Systems Finmeccanica – has been awarded a contract for the supply of the MID-air Collision Avoidance System by the European Defence Agency (EDA) behalf of the Member States (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, the latter as the lead nation for the project).
The contract value is around 50 million, for a period of four years. The contract involves the construction of a Sense & Avoid able to identify and avoid potential collision threats in flight for unmanned aircraft (UAS, Unmanned Aircraft Systems).
The project's objective is to establish MIDCAS, in close collaboration with European organizations such as Eurocontrol, EUROCAE (European Organisation for Civil Aviation Equipment) ed EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency), a standard Sense & Avoid for unmanned, developing, through simulation and flight test, a system capable of meeting, safely, the requirements for traffic separation and collision avoidance in non-segregated airspace.
Coordination with the United States will be ensured mainly through participation in EUROCAE WG73 organizations such as the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) e la Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). "The project – said Lennart Sindahl, Executive Vice President of Saab AB and Head of Aeronautics – meet 13 major European industries active in the aviation industry, that will bring the many initiatives of the European Sense & Avoid to achieve a unified strategy, supported by EDA, finalized the integration of UAS in European airspace. Only by working closely together we can achieve in Europe a common agreement on how to solve problems related to Sense & Avoid".
"As regards Italy - said Filippo Bagnato, Central Director of Technical Development, Industrial and Commercial of Finmeccanica - it should be emphasized the important support given to this project by the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation Authority-National Agency for Civil Aviation, who have understood and believed strongly in the strategic value of System Sense & Avoid, that will achieve the common requirements in a sector such as the unmanned aircraft, expected to grow dramatically around the world in the coming years. We are also pleased that the system Sky-Y UAV of Alenia Aeronautica - Finmeccanica has been chosen to carry out flight demonstrations ".
Finmeccanica Press