Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS)

KinetX Aerospace supported the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) as a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman in their development of the BAMS Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).  The BAMS UAS provides persistent maritime Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) data collection and dissemination capability to the fleet, serving as a force multiplier for the JF and Fleet Commander, enhancing situational awareness of the battlespace, and shortening the sensor-to-shooter kill chain.  In support of this effort, KinetX Aerospace provided support across the spectrum of engineering disciplines for the BAMS Airborne Recorder (BAR).  The BAR is a solid-state data recorder for the BAMS UAS that provides transparent encryption/decryption for data at rest.  The BAR provides Network File System (NFS) data storage access from which authorized BAMS subsystems can read and write.

BAR Recording Functions

• 9. 6TB Removable Flash Drive

  • Type 1 DAR Encryption / NFS Storage

  • 800 Mbps Throughput

  • 9.6 TB total storage (3.6 TB when equipped with an RRC

• 10 Channel High Speed Radar (I&Q) Storage

  • 2.5 Gbps peak (x10) / 1.25 Gbps (x10)

  • 6 TB total storage

BAR Components and Configuration

The primary hardware components of the BAR system in its operational configuration are a Single Board Computer (SBC) and a Flash Storage Array (FSA) composed of a set of Solid State Drives (SSD).  The FSA is designed as a removable component of the BAR, which provides the capability to remove mission data from the aircraft, transport it to ground systems and install it in a ground system so that mission operators can retrieve and process the data.

A secondary function of the BAR is supported when the BAR is configured in a Flight-Test configuration and provisioned with a specially designed RADAR Recorder Card (RRC).  The RRC provides dedicated hardware functionality to record high-rate RADAR data generated by the BAMS RADAR Subsystem to the BAR's removable FSA storage component.