Geneva Aerospace is providing the airframe and technologies for the demonstration of the Kingfisher Jr. by Vought Aircraft Industries.

Vought recently was awarded a $497,000 contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate the feasibility of a sea-going UAV, which will be designed to take off and land on water.

Vought will modify Geneva's Dakota UAV for water operations, removing landing gear and adding floats, said Dave Duggan, vice president of business development for Geneva.

The Dakota features a 16-foot wingspan and a 200-pound airframe, which was originally designed by Daedalus Research, for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory as a rugged UAV test-bed.

It has been used as a sensor test platform and surrogate vehicle for several research and development efforts, including autonomous operations exercised by the U.S. Navy.

In addition to the Dakota, Geneva is providing Vought with flightTEK, its flight computer developed specifically for UAVs.

Geneva also will provide engineering services needed to adapt the flightTEK control system for use on the high seas.

"We're adapting our core guidance systems to enable a UAV to land on the open ocean," Duggan said.

"The technology challenge is landing on the waves without harming the airplane. That requires integration of a sea motion sensing device to predict the movements of the water and choose a landing point on the back side of a wave - without pilot intervention."

Vought expects testing to be completed by the end of the year.

"With Geneva's flight control technologies, we're well on our way to accomplishing our goals," said Fred Schwartz, vice president of military programs for Vought.

"Geneva has already developed flightTEK to the point that the baseline take-off and landing controls are nearly in place. We simply have to take them to the next level for this specialized ocean-use application."

flightTEK provides the flight computer and software needed to transform UAVs into autonomous machines.

It includes Geneva's patent-pending Variable Autonomy Control System (VACS) software, which runs on top of a real-time variant of the Linux operating system.

More than just an autopilot, VACS serves as a true mission management system.

flightTEK measures just 3.5 inches by 4.75 inches by 1.75 inches.

Yet it includes a variety of input/output capabilities including seven serial ports, 12 input and 12 output digital IO ports, eight analog channels with 14-bit resolution, a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port and eight PWM ports.

This enables flightTEK to interface with the vehicle's mission payload, communication system, propulsion system and control effectors.

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