Sagetech Avionics, an aerospace technology company providing industry-leading situational awareness solutions for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), announced that on 5 February the DoD AIMS Program Office issued the world’s first 17-1000 Mark XIIB certification to Sagetech for its MX12B micro Mode 5 Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) transponder. This newly certified transponder enables NATO and allied militaries to deploy Mode 5 IFF capability on small drones, protecting the warfighter against rapidly increasing unmanned threats from enemy forces.
“Around the world, enemy military drones are proliferating, and it is vital to distinguish between friendly or hostile drones. Mode 5 IFF provides the solution to this issue, but until now, manned aircraft transponders were too large for use on anything but the largest UAS,” explained Tom Furey, CEO of Sagetech Avionics. “The MX12B combines Mode 5 IFF functionality with ADS-B situational awareness in a tiny SWaP unit that is fast and easy to integrate.
Sagetech has served the military with certified products that have flown millions of mission hours, so customers can feel comfortable they’re receiving bullet-proof functionality built on a heritage of military program performance.”
Over the past year, Sagetech has successfully performed live demonstrations of the MX12B interoperating with multiple crypto computers at the U.S. Navy IMPAX 2020 event, for the U.S Army, and for major OEM military UAS customers. With the new certification issued last week, the company has already delivered certified MX12B units to numerous customers to fulfill backlog purchase orders for new and ongoing programs.
The new MX12B is the world’s smallest certified Mode 5 IFF transponder, delivering 100% of the Mode 5 functionality from a package that is 93% smaller than traditionally certified transponders. With all the functionality integrated into a single unit, the MX12B is easy to purchase, integrate, and fly on both unmanned and manned aircraft.
“From a technology perspective, we’ve used our military program experience and microelectronics expertise to take a traditional Mode 5 IFF transponder and condense it into a package that is nine times smaller, six times lighter, and certified to a higher level than the next smallest certified Mode 5 IFF transponder,” said Matthew Hamilton, CTO of Sagetech. “After months of rigorous testing to verify compliance to the full AIMS 17-1000 specification, harsh MIL-STD environmental testing, and data analysis by our team of engineers, we are pleased to have certified to the complete set of Mode 5 IFF requirements. Our new MX12B is suitable for any fixed- or rotary-wing unmanned or manned aircraft.”
For multi-mission UAVs, the MX12B preserves avionics designs across fleets through easy interchangeability with a civil version of the transponder, Sagetech’s MXS. The MX12B represents the next-generation of military-certified transponders from Sagetech. Previously, Sagetech had certified its XPC AIMS Mode A/C transponder, now in service for more than a decade.
