It’s hard to imagine that the smartphone in your pocket has anything in common with the Gripen aircraft. However, they have more similarities between them than meets the eye. Both rely on software technologies with built-in flexibility and adaptability. Technologies which can be effortlessly upgraded without a need for costly design and replacement efforts, allowing the product to evolve and be customised to meet any changing need of the user. This is a prerequisite for performance at optimal levels, to stay not only relevant, but to lead the way. In the same way that you can download apps for your smartphone, with Gripen, software adaptations can be made to counter new and evolving threats. The ability to customise Gripen’s systems has been made possible due to a new revolutionary design of the Avionics Platform Software (APS) and hardware architecture. Compared with the smartphone, the Saab engineers has however taken this concept to a whole new level with Gripen E. The software is actually not dependent on what hardware it runs on, and vice versa. This means as computational power develops, new standard hardware can continuously and swiftly be installed without having to requalify the software. This in turn enables new advanced AI software that requires such computational powers to be introduced in a continuous synergistic spiral. Using the smartphone analogy would mean that you could change processor to unlock more powerful apps without having to buy a new phone. Disruptive innovations and several years of hard work has gone into creating this unique form of avionics software and hardware structure. As technology becomes increasingly advanced, Gripen E evolves with it, in an ever changing process. By designing the avionics architecture in the Gripen to truly separate tactical system functions from the flight critical, changes can be made very rapidly. At the same time, the Saab principle is to keep the software as generic as possible. By also using generic computers it becomes much easier to make the upgrade work. The separated avionics architecture in Gripen E is certified to the highest software assurance level. In software terms, this means that Gripen E is the most secure fighter system on the market.
Never obsolete, always available
The Gripen E avionics architecture enables the integration of tailor-made customer applications, and it removes risks of the system ever becoming obsolete. The flexible avionics also allows for ease of integration of virtually any weapon of any origin. And maybe best of all, this all means that Gripen E will never spend a lot of time on the ground for time consuming requalification of the entire aircraft, so it’s available for the next mission quickly. This is of course absolutely critical in a war time scenario. Since the first flight of Gripen E in June 2017, the software platform has been updated numerous times. In addition to upgrading the hardware and its performance, all of the Gripen E computer processors have also been updated. Thanks to the unique avionics core, these updates are done very rapidly; in a matter of days and sometimes in only a few hours, where no flight critical re-qualification needs to be done. As further artificial intelligence enhancements and machine learning capabilities are introduced, the system’s tactical agility and adaptability ensure that these will be able to be incorporated with ease, and the Gripen fleet will be updated and ready for the next mission long before anyone else.
By Kent-Åke Molin, Head of Gripen for India Programme