SPARKS, Nev. — Sierra Nevada Corporation in Sparks was recently awarded a contract to procure, deliver and support the Degraded Visual Environment Pilotage System (DVEPS) on U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and select U.S. Army aircraft.
“We are very excited to get these systems in the hands of our military aircrews,” SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen said in a June 2 press release. “DVEPS will enhance aircraft survivability throughout the entire mission profile by providing critical capabilities not available on current aircraft, such as terrain and obstacle detection, highlighting and alerts.”
Per the release, DVEPS is a multi-sensor system providing real-time situational awareness to aid pilots in maintaining spatial awareness during and after transition from Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC) to DVE conditions.
“DVEPS offers a leap-ahead capability to enhanced situational awareness today and provides the foundation for an incremental growth path to a much great capability such as pilotage or supervised autonomy, fully relevant for future vertical lift (FVL) aircraft,” Greg Cox, executive vice president for SNC's Electronic and Information Systems business area, said in a statement.
Aviation crews flying closer to the ground in limited visibility conditions will need to be aware of, and avoid, unseen dangerous terrain and obstacles in their path — from trees, to electrical wires, to towers.
SNC's DVE technology provides terrain and obstacle awareness, including cable and wire detection, in limited visibility conditions, anywhere and at any time. It also allows aircrews to complete missions safely and successfully in multi-ship operations and degraded navigation environments.
SNC was competitively selected for the third phase DVEPS task order following a successful airborne test at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona in 2015. This final phase includes full-rate production of DVEPS systems in Sparks.
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