GNAT Pro Provides Multi-Language Support aboard Raytheon's SSDS

FAIRFAX, Va., November 6, 2007 - SIGAda 2007 - AdaCore, provider of the highest quality Ada tools and support services, today announced that Raytheon has delivered the Ship Self-Defense System (SSDS) Mk 2 using GNAT Pro for LynxOS within its multi-language software development environment. SSDS Mk 2 is a combat system that integrates and coordinates the sensors and weapons systems aboard a US Naval vessel to provide a coherent tactical picture for situational awareness, command and controls, and quick-reaction self-defense. It is a single-source baseline that supports multiple system configuration modifications (MODs) for large deck ship classes (aircraft carriers and amphibious ships). GNAT Pro was specifically used on the SSDS Mk 2 to support Ada application development on the Intel processors and the LynxOS operating system.

“SSDS Mk 2 is a modular distributed program consisting of C, C++, and Ada software components,” said Mark A. Hodge, SSDS Mk 2 Technical Director for Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. “LynxOS for x86 was selected because of its real-time determinism as we migrated from an older operating system towards a more mainstream OS. The AdaCore GNAT Pro compile system was selected both for its support for LynxOS and its association with GNU, which is being used for the C and C++ application components.”

"AdaCore's GNAT Pro tool set provided Raytheon with the seamless interoperability it required to support the inherently mixed-language development of SSDS Mk 2," said Robert Dewar, President of AdaCore. "On large, mission-critical systems, Ada is often used in conjunction with other languages, and the Ada design specifically caters to such usage. AdaCore provides complete support for compilation with multi-language build and debug for all GNAT Pro environments.”

SSDS Program Description
On many of today's amphibious ships and aircraft carriers, the radar and anti-air weapons used for self-defense are installed as stand-alone systems. As a result, considerable manual intervention is required to complete the detect-to-engage sequence against anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs). SSDS Mk 2 is designed to expedite that process. Consisting of software and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, SSDS Mk 2 integrates radar systems with anti-air weapons, both hardkill (missile systems) and softkill (decoys).

SSDS Mk 2 includes embedded doctrine to provide an integrated detect-through-engage capability with options ranging from use as a tactical decision aid to use as an automatic weapons system to respond with hardkill and softkill systems.

Although SSDS Mk 2 will not improve the capability of individual sensors, it enhances target tracking by integrating the inputs from several different sensors to form a composite track. For example, SSDS Mk 2 will correlate target detections from individual radars, the electronic support measures (ESM) system (radar warning receiver), and the identification-friend or foe (IFF) system, combining these to build composite tracks on targets while identifying and prioritizing threats. Similarly, SSDS Mk 2 will not improve the capability of individual weapons, but should expedite the assignment of weapons for threat engagement, and provide a "recommend engage" display for operators, or if in automatic mode, initiate weapons firing, ECM transmission, chaff or decoy deployment, or some combination of these.

SSDS Mk 2 integrates previously "stand-alone" sensor and engagement systems for aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships, thereby supporting the Joint Vision 2010 concept of full-dimensional protection, by providing a final layer of self-protection against air threat "leakers" for individual ships. By ensuring such protection, SSDS Mk 2 contributes indirectly to the operational concept of precision engagement, in that strike operations against targets are executed from several of the platforms receiving SSDS Mk 2.

About AdaCore
Founded in 1994, AdaCore is the leading provider of commercial software solutions for Ada, a modern programming language designed for large, long-lived applications where safety, security, and reliability are critical. AdaCore's flagship product is the GNAT Pro development environment, which comes with expert on-line support and is available on more platforms than any other Ada technology. AdaCore has an extensive world-wide customer base; see http://www.adacore.com/customers/ for further information.

Ada and GNAT Pro continue to see growing usage in high-integrity and safety-certified applications, including commercial aircraft avionics, military systems, air traffic management/control, railroad systems, and medical devices, and in security-sensitive domains such as financial services.

AdaCore has North American headquarters in New York and European headquarters in Paris.

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