Airborne Systems Engineering & Production

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Airborne Systems Engineering and Production

Airborne Systems Engineering and Production

The NASC Airborne Systems Engineering and Production Sector is comprised of two major sub-sectors. The first sub-sector is a group of highly capable electrical, mechanical, and software engineers, who are co-located with the Flight Operations group and production technicians at our Ivyland, PA facility.

Throughout the 10 year history of the TigerShark, this sector has provided the engineering for numerous UAV upgrades, both for our corporate-owned TigerShark aircraft as well as UAV’s delivered to government, university, and commercial customers. In that same time, our Johnstown manufacturing facility produced 170 TigerShark UAVs that were delivered to the US Military and used for deployed operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The NASC Airborne Systems Engineering and Production Sector is comprised of two major sub-sectors. The first sub-sector is a group of highly capable electrical, mechanical, and software engineers, who are co-located with the Flight Operations group and production technicians at our Ivyland, PA facility.

Throughout the 10 year history of the TigerShark, this sector has provided the engineering for numerous UAV upgrades, both for our corporate-owned TigerShark aircraft as well as UAV’s delivered to government, university, and commercial customers. In that same time, our Johnstown manufacturing facility produced 170 TigerShark UAVs that were delivered to the US Military and used for deployed operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Aerospace Manufacturing & Production

NASC offers Aerospace engineering, manufacturing, and production at its Pennsylvania-based facilities. With a broad range of capabilities and a staff of highly experience craftspeople, NASC can design and develop, test and deploy a diverse catalog of component parts, subassemblies, or full-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms to meet customer-specific needs.

Aerospace Manufacturing & Production

NASC offers Aerospace engineering, manufacturing, and production at its Pennsylvania-based facilities. With a broad range of capabilities and a staff of highly experience craftspeople, NASC can design and develop, test and deploy a diverse catalog of component parts, subassemblies, or full-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) platforms to meet customer-specific needs.

Airborne Systems Engineering

The NASC Airborne Systems Engineering Group works closely with our government, university, commercial, and internal customers to ensure we completely understand their requirements. Our extensive experience proves invaluable, as we often are able to point out to customers some requirements that they don’t even realize they have. Having our electrical, mechanical, and software engineers co-located with the Flight Operations group and productions technicians is a tremendous advantage. Pilots and air vehicle technicians provide operational experience that the engineers use to design systems that will survive the rigors of flight and flight-line maintenance. The pilots also provide the software engineers with what they need or want to see displayed in the Ground Control Station so the software can be modified. Similarly, our production technicians can rapidly build mechanical and electrical components necessary for payload integration once the engineers have designed the system. The end result is a self-contained group that can quickly design, fabricate, bench test, integrate, and conduct full hardware-in-the-loop ground testing very quickly.

Airborne Systems Engineering

The NASC Airborne Systems Engineering Group works closely with our government, university, commercial, and internal customers to ensure we completely understand their requirements. Our extensive experience proves invaluable, as we often are able to point out to customers some requirements that they don’t even realize they have.  Having our electrical, mechanical, and software engineers co-located with the Flight Operations group and productions technicians is a tremendous advantage. Pilots and air vehicle technicians provide operational experience that the engineers use to design systems that will survive the rigors of flight and flight-line maintenance. The pilots also provide the software engineers with what they need or want to see displayed in the Ground Control Station so the software can be modified.  Similarly, our production technicians can rapidly build mechanical and electrical components necessary for payload integration once the engineers have designed the system. The end result is a self-contained group that can quickly design, fabricate, bench test, integrate, and conduct full hardware-in-the-loop ground testing very quickly.

RF & Data Link Engineering

NASC engineering’s RF and Datalink group was originally established to support the design and development of an adaptive communications antenna array and a low cost GPS anti-jam radio system to support our UAV programs.  Since those early days we have supported the design and development of systems ranging in frequency up to 30 GHz, with significant team member experience at higher frequencies.  This team has won numerous SBIR awards and government contracts. We strive to provide systems designed to succeed.

NASC engineering provides design, development and low rate initial production capability for microwave and millimeter wave RF components.  These components and assemblies support both internal and external programs with products ranging from multipath reduction antennas, Anti-Jam GPS antennas, millimeter wave direction finding arrays, RF test sets, link evaluations, and mmW hardware and antenna development.  Our team supports both hardware implementation and software defined radio development.

Past Projects Include:

  • Dual band Ku/Ka antenna system design
  • GPS AJ antenna design/development
  • Dual Frequency Differential GPS for mobile platforms
  • 2-18 GHz Electronic warfare array
  • Custom Feeds for parabolic antennas
  • Wideband digital phase shifters
  • Chip and Wire hardware development.
  • RF support Equipment for aircraft carriers (CVN, LH)
  • Waveform design for F35
  • RF support for F35, F18 and King Air test and evaluation
  • RF support for Army, Navy and AF landing systems.
Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Chandler Harrell*
Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jeff Sherman*

RF & Data Link Engineering

NASC engineering’s RF and Datalink group was originally established to support the design and development of an adaptive communications antenna array and a low cost GPS anti-jam radio system to support our UAV programs.  Since those early days we have supported the design and development of systems ranging in frequency up to 30 GHz, with significant team member experience at higher frequencies.  This team has won numerous SBIR awards and government contracts. We strive to provide systems designed to succeed.

NASC engineering provides design, development and low rate initial production capability for microwave and millimeter wave RF components.  These components and assemblies support both internal and external programs with products ranging from multipath reduction antennas, Anti-Jam GPS antennas, millimeter wave direction finding arrays, RF test sets, link evaluations, and mmW hardware and antenna development.  Our team supports both hardware implementation and software defined radio development.

Past Projects Include:

  • Dual band Ku/Ka antenna system design
  • GPS AJ antenna design/development
  • Dual Frequency Differential GPS for mobile platforms
  • 2-18 GHz Electronic warfare array
  • Custom Feeds for parabolic antennas
  • Wideband digital phase shifters
  • Chip and Wire hardware development.
  • RF support Equipment for aircraft carriers (CVN, LH)
  • Waveform design for F35
  • RF support for F35, F18 and King Air test and evaluation
  • RF support for Army, Navy and AF landing systems.

Flight Software Engineering

NASC designed flight software includes the Electronic Flight Instrument Systems or EFIS, the Heads-Up Display or HUD, and the NASC Antenna Tracking Software. These systems are in current use in multiple locations around the globe. NASC is also hard at work on multiple additional Flight Software packages that will provide greater utility and convenience for UAV pilots and mission commanders.

Flight Software Engineering

NASC designed flight software includes the Electronic Flight Instrument Systems or EFIS, the Heads-Up Display or HUD, and the NASC Antenna Tracking Software. These systems are in current use in multiple locations around the globe. NASC is also hard at work on multiple additional Flight Software packages that will provide greater utility and convenience for UAV pilots and mission commanders.

*The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.