Military Electronics Products and High Technology Remote Sensing Applications by SDT
SDT is a defence company focused to develop and manufacture indigenous defence electronics products and remote sensing applications. SDT’s main concentration is on new technologies for Turkish defence industry like Synthetic Aperture Radar and Satellite Technologies, Sensor Signal, Image and Data Processing Applications, Ruggedized Computers and Embedded Simulation applications.
Digital Data Recorders
Under the vision to provide highly qualified defence products both for local and export market; SDT has started to develop indigenous defence products with own financing in Airborne Digital Data/Video Recording area in 2006 and created a product line named as DDR- Product Family. Since then SDT has been the supplier of the various Digital Data/Video Recorders for the following programs:
7 of DDR-100 to TUSAŞ for Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV), namely ANKA, between 2010 and 2011.
66 of DDR-200 to TUSAS for T-38 Trainer Aircraft, between 2011 and 2012
63 of DDR-500 to ASELSAN for Turkish Atack Helicopter program. Deliveries are on going.
SDT’s DDR product family is also extended to airborne targeting pod applications in a Turkish Armed Forces program and SDT also has provided a Debrief Station to provide the capability of debriefing the mission on the ground after the mission.
DDR product family is capable of recording data from digital/analog video/audio interfaces, data buses and all types of serial/parallel data ports under harsh environmental and mission conditions. DDR has also simultaneous playback capability and yet has very low power consumption. Modular, flexible and expandable design of DDR allows rapid and reliable development of custom recording equipment for air, sea and ground platforms.
In addition to airborne digital recorders, SDT has also developed various other avionics, like ruggedized airborne computer for digital moving map, missile launcher control electronics, video coding/decoding for missile seeker and airborne digital data acquisition devices. Besides, SDT has carried this capability into land based vehicles by supplying video multiplexer units to FNSS in export market. SDT has also started serial production of all these developed electronics equipment and they have been qualified per military environmental and EMI/EMC requirements.
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Technologies
SDT has also an important role in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensor of ANKA. The SAR sensor provides an additional capability to ANKA to obtain intelligence data under all weather conditions. ANKA’s SAR sensor is indigenously developed by SDT and ASELSAN as a result of a R&D program funded by Turkish Scientific Research Agency (TUBITAK) and executed by SSM. SDT’s role in the SAR sensor is the development of SAR signal processing algorithms, real time software/firmware and also a high speed digital data recorder for SAR data. Flight test program of the sensor has been successfully completed and its integration to ANKA is ongoing. Moreover, SDT is also appointed to implement Inverse SAR (ISAR) mode on this sensor to fulfill Turkish Navy needs.
Development of ISAR mode will be completed in 2013. Figure 2 is a sample of SAR image generated by SDT real time algorithms.
Image Processing & Simulation Applications
Under the SDT’s vision to concentrate on sensor signal, image and data processing, SDT has extended its product and technology base towards imaging sensors and image processing applications. Within this context, SDT is currently appointed to develop "Ground Station User Service Subsystem" to implement image exploitation, archiving, user interface and order management functionalities in GÖKTÜRK-I high resolution EO/IR military observation satellite program of Turkey. Besides, SDT is under contract for automatic target recognition algorithm and software development based on SAR images for Turkish Armed Forces. Moreover, SDT is a partner in a European Union (EU) Framework Program 7 (FP7), called ALICIA (All Condition Operations and Innovative Cockpit Infrastructure) to improve pilot’s situational awareness on the cockpit by utilizing sensor image processing and data fusion technologies to enable civilian aircraft to land, take off and taxi under bad weather conditions.
SDT has developed various simulation and modelling applications, concentrated on embedded simulation applications, visual modelling, tactical environment simulation and sensor simulations.
SDT has expanded its technological base especially in (i) sensor signal and image processing applications in airborne platforms, UAVs and satellites, (ii) military mission electronics equipment and (iii) also simulation & modelling applications in the local market and would like to offer these products and capabilities also to the export market.
