CGI has been awarded a contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) to lead the development of a cloud-based Universal Virtual Flight Data Recorder (UVFDR).
The Montreal-based company has been delivering space software systems supporting satellite navigation, communications, and operations for over 40 years.
The virtual flight data recorder will replicate the function of traditional crash-protected flight data recorder (“Black Box”) in a cloud-based environment, enabling access to data almost immediately in case of an emergency, incident, or accident.
Built using CGI’s TrustedFabric, a proprietary blockchain solution for storage of sensitive data, the system is scalable and is planned to be made available globally for use on any aircraft equipped to send engineering telemetry and operational data to the ground.
“Understanding the cause of an air-related incident is vital to helping improve flight safety, and indispensable for those impacted and their families,” said Neil Timms, CGI’s senior vice president, Space, Defence and Intelligence for UK & Australia. “CGI is proud to be working with ESA, whilst building on our heritage in safe, secure cloud, to develop a virtual flight recording service that allows any suitably equipped aircraft to send flight data to a secure cloud storage facility.”