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DA62 Special Mission Aircraft’s maiden flight with a COMINT/C-ESM airborne system

By the end of 2018 Diamond Aircraft’s DA62 Special Mission Aircraft performed successfully its maiden flight with a full COMINT/C-ESM airborne solution from Rohde & Schwarz, supported by an EO/IR state of the art sensor from TRAKKA System and a high performance Line-of-Sight Link from Viasat.

Diamond's system integration engineers have been working in mounting a compact COMINT/C-ESM system from Rohde & Schwarz onboard the DA62 special mission aircraft. The platform is capable of providing valuable communications reconnaissance and surveillance using the most advanced techniques detecting, analyzing and geo-locating signals of interest automatically. The system provides COMINT/C-ESM capabilities for all types of communications signals from VHF to UHF. The DA62 MPP in a COMINT/C-ESM configuration also features an EO/IR sensor, which can be used for detection, recognition and visual identification of any potential targets and could be automatically guided to the direction as well as to the source of the signal. The combination of these sensors can determine this platform as the ideal tool for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, as well as counter-drug operations, homeland security, and search and rescue.

Markus Fischer, Director Special Mission Aircraft: “Another big step into our next phase of expanding the capabilities of Diamond’s Special Mission Aircraft flag ship – the DA62 MPP. The large volume provides our design engineers more space to install state of the art high-end technology without being limited in space. COMINT/C-ESM technology in combination with an EO/IR sensor is highly demanded on the market and I am happy to say that we are well prepared to serve those requirements.”

After completing the complex design of this configuration, a flight campaign has followed in order to evaluate the performance and the capabilities of the system. During the flight trials at Diamond’s Headquarters in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, Diamond's Technical Manager Nikolaos Mavrikis stated: "The level of automation of the Rohde & Schwarz software as well as the accuracy of detecting and intercepting signals exceed any expectation. We have been impressed from the operator’s interface and its simplicity.”

Whether used for border protection, rescue operations at sea or surveillance missions, the air-based communications reconnaissance systems from Rohde & Schwarz record, classify and locate communication signals reliably from an aircraft. Felix Wagner, Director Sales for monitoring and network testing solutions at Rohde & Schwarz, explains: "Our long-standing cooperation with Diamond Aircraft and the professional collaboration of our teams have made it possible to integrate our communication reconnaissance systems from the DA42 into the DA62 in an extremely short time. Diamond Aircraft is a flexible and reliable partner for integrating our systems. Their aircraft are ideal carrier platforms. Together with high-performance integrated sensors, the DA62 enables highly efficient reconnaissance from the air."

Airborne configuration

  • DA62 Special Mission Aircraft
  • EO/IR Sensor SWE400LE from Trakka System
  • Airborne COMINT System from Rohde & Schwarz
  • Line of Sight EnerlinksIII from Viasat
  • Haivision Makito X video encoder

Ground configuration

  • In house designed ground station with the support of Haivision’s media platform

Partner companies

Rohde & Schwarz: www.rohde-schwarz.com
Trakka Systems: trakkasystems.com
Viasat: www.viasat.com/about
Haivision: www.haivision.com

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