Supporting success: over £4 million awarded for the adoption of PYRAMID on avionics and mission systems

• Eleven innovative organisations have been awarded over £4 million in funding to help develop software systems that are PYRAMID compliant.
• The Phase 1 DASA PYRAMID for avionics and mission systems competition was run on behalf of the RAF Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO).
• This phase of the competition sought proposals to support the adoption of PYRAMID in current and upcoming systems.

PYRAMID is a UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) initiative to develop rapidly adaptable avionics and mission systems through a suite of reusable software components. These are designed to operate within a well-defined software Reference Architecture, enabled by systematic reuse processes and Model Based Systems Engineering. PYRAMID targets both future air systems and legacy systems to deliver operational advantage, and to reduce the time and cost in implementing through-life capability enhancements. The MOD has made a significant investment in this initiative, and is now working across national and international programmes, and industrial partners, to support adoption. This DASA competition forms a key aspect of this strategy.

Eleven companies, UK based and international, have won a share of over £4 million in the first phase of the PYRAMID for avionics and mission systems competition. The companies range from major aircraft developers to SMEs, with competition winners implementing PYRAMID into a variety of platforms including fixed wing, rotary wing, small uncrewed systems, and weapons.

The competition which was run on behalf of the RAF Rapid Capabilities Office, was intended to help companies re-engineer pre-existing software, and develop new software that is PYRAMID compliant, thereby unlocking the benefits of adopting the PYRAMID approach.

Mike Lane, PYRAMID Lead, RAF RCO Technology Office said:

It has been an absolute pleasure working with the DASA team on this competition. The outreach team have done a terrific job in soliciting interest from such a wide range of organisations, and the number of high-quality proposals received was a strong indication of their success. Widespread adoption is fundamental to the potential benefits of PYRAMID being realised, and this competition and the resulting contracts are a major step forward.

The eleven successful organisations are listed below with their take on the project:Raytheon Systems Limited

“With the PYRAMID Reference Architecture now released as a fully UK MOD-endorsed standard, the DASA-led PYRAMID competition significantly supports Raytheon UK in growing the capability to deploy and support PYRAMID for their next family of Air-Launched Effector Mission Systems. By integrating PYRAMID architecture concepts, these Mission Systems gain adaptability by embedding open architecture principles at their core, enhancing Raytheon UK's capacity to deliver continuous upgrades and maintain an operational edge for our armed forces at the pace of relevance.”

Leonardo UK Ltd (Helicopters Division)

“Leonardo has been selected under a Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition to evaluate the adoption of the Pyramid Reference Architecture (PRA) into sensor software and rotorcraft mission architectures. Under this programme, the company will be focusing on how the PRA could be incorporated into its Osprey AESA radar and related mission systems for new and existing rotary-wing aircraft, considering different core mission architectures using a Pyramid approach.”

Frazer-Nash Consultancy

“Frazer-Nash will be developing and demonstrating key Swarming Uncrewed Air System (SwUAS) capabilities using the guidance provided in the PYRAMID Technical Standard. The team will be using an iterative systems-engineering design process to progressively develop the concept architecture in stages and ensure continuous PYRAMID compliance. They will utilise their deep simulation expertise to incorporate synthetic testing throughout. They see this as a fantastic opportunity to apply their complex systems know-how to support a step change in Air Mission Systems.”

SimCentric Technologies – Project RAPTOR

“SimCentric is leveraging the PYRAMID Reference Architecture to advance its autonomous drone capability, enabling coordinated swarms to conduct a wide range of complex tasks. The framework features a composable behaviour architecture, allowing flexible task definition and dynamic adaptation. It supports multiple levels of control—from individual drone autonomy to high-level swarm orchestration—and is designed to be hardware agnostic. This funding will significantly accelerate this capability development.”

SimCentric Technologies – Project AF-STOMP

“As part of the AF-STOMP project, SimCentric is applying the PYRAMID Reference Architecture to refactor and further componentise its world-leading Joint Fires and JTAC training software, SAF-FIRES™. Already trusted by the UK, Sweden, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, the USMC, and other global militaries, this effort will enhance modularity, expandability, and integration potential of the technology. The funding will allow SimCentric to broaden SAF-FIRES' applicability beyond training to include operational analysis and mission rehearsal.”

Espanaro Ltd

“Espanaro are undertaking realignment of some of their existing product lines to be PYRAMID compliant in areas of security service provision and management of autonomous systems. This presents the opportunity for them to offer their products into the air domain as services for integration into more complex integrated systems and enables them to join the PYRAMID ecosystem and share knowledge and experience with other partners.”

THURN Group Ltd.

“THURN Group Ltd is developing and demonstrating lightweight, modular UAV-based sensor systems. Their project focuses on PRA-compliant deployment of UAV sensor and communication components. With DASA support, they are building internal capability for implementing and testing real-world software components aligned to the PYRAMID Reference Architecture, and sharing lessons learned for SMEs. This work will contribute to shaping best practices for lightweight, scalable PRA compliance in autonomous sensing and modular avionics.”

BAE Systems (Operations) Limited

“BAE Systems Electronic Systems is developing a PYRAMID compliant High Integrity Energy Management System that can be deployed across multiple platforms and fuel types for future electric or hybrid propulsion systems. The PYRAMID Reference Architecture is key to MoD's strategy to enable robust, re-usable modular architectures. The DASA funding will benefit the business significantly, enabling early adoption of the PYRAMID Reference Architecture and preparing the business for future PYRAMID compliant products.”

Archangel Autonomy Ltd

“Archangel Autonomy develops and deploys AI systems out beyond the edge of the network. The focus of this project is to develop the next generation architecture and system design of the Xnaut AI Co-Pilot, an applique module for UAS to enable operations in communications-denied and GNSS-denied environments. The intent is to further aid rapid integration with a diverse set of partner UAS fleets.”

Kearfott Corp

“Kearfott is proud to support the PYRAMID programme alongside leading system integrators and suppliers. By adapting their existing FACE architecture to PRA (PYRAMID Reference Architecture) and integrating into Kearfott's NxNAV EGI (Embedded GPS/INS) system, they are demonstrating a robust, GPS-independent solution. This proof-of-concept highlights PRA's viability as an open-architecture framework powered by Kearfott sensors and integration expertise.”

SAIF Systems Ltd

“Leveraging SAIF Autonomy's expertise in Run-Time Assurance, the project addresses key safety challenges associated with deploying AI-driven autonomous platforms, via real-time monitoring and intervention capabilities that enforce safety constraints, detect potential unsafe behaviours before they happen, and take high integrity corrective actions. The project funding will enable SAIF Autonomy's architecture to become PYRAMID compliant and significantly expand the MOD's ability to rapidly integrate and deploy their technology across autonomous systems.”

We share our congratulations with the 11 successful teams for their winning submissions.Learn more

Learn more about the PYRAMID for avionics and mission systems (Phase 1) here. If you are interested in learning more about the next phase of this competition, please keep an eye on our website for the latest information. We advertise upcoming opportunities within our pipeline which you can access here.