xKIT - converting a manned aircraft into unmanned/manned vehicle

SOMERSET WEST, South Africa - Sept. 13, 2016 - PRLog -- The S-PLANE xKIT is a unique automation solution which converts an existing manned aircraft into an Optionally Piloted Vehicle (OPV). Released by S-PLANE Automation today, this product enables system integrators and aircraft manufacturers to bring sophisticated unmanned features rapidly to market with confidence in successful outcomes.

The OPV is a highly versatile platform, combining the benefits of a manned aircraft with those of a UAV. As a manned aircraft, the OPV can execute missions that demand human judgement and control such as flight in civil airspace, flight over congested areas, flying at low level and transporting passengers. When the OPV is configured as a UAV, it can perform missions which require extreme endurance or are too dangerous for manned aircraft. These include critical infrastructure protection and surveillance, border and maritime patrol, cargo delivery, firefighting and HAZMAT containment.

The OPV can dramatically reduce the different classes of vehicles an organisation has to keep in operation to perform a variety of tasks. This brings about substantial savings in setting up infrastructure, other capital expenditure and training of maintenance and operational personnel. The ability to operate in manned airspace also greatly reduces the out-of-service period during planned maintenance, as the aircraft can be flown to the maintenance depot without requiring disassembly and shipment.

The xKIT offers a quick and affordable route towards creating highly featured OPVs and UAVs, satisfying a wide variety of user requirements. The use of existing airframes, which have been well tested, fully modelled and have large payload carrying capability, results in very high confidence in successful outcomes, thus substantially reducing development risk and cost.

The xKIT uses building blocks from the S-PLANE xSERIES of subsystems and offers the degree of redundancy, ruggedness, safety and reliability required for the most demanding applications. It is flexible to accommodate a wide variety of different aircraft and is modular to allow for fast adaptation to enable a broad range of functions. A single switch allows the pilot or operator to toggle the OPV between manned and unmanned piloting modes.

The xKIT design allows an aircraft to retain its certification status for manned flight, enabling its continued use in airspace where manned aircraft operations take place. It operates in tight integration with other S-PLANE subsystems such as ParagonC2, a groundstation for UAS Command & Control and S-PLANE's high-fidelity HILS (Hardware-In-the-Loop Simulator) for testing, qualification, maintenance and training.