Having joined the company four years ago, Giuseppe Siciliano is a design engineer in the Avionic Systems Engineering area at Leonardo’s Venegono Superiore (Varese) site, where he follows the development, verification and validation of the communication and identification equipment for integration on board the M-346 advanced trainer aircraft.
With an academic background in STEM subjects and a specialisation in the field of radio frequency applications, Giuseppe has been able to immediately put his studies into practice by “working as a specialist in communication and identification systems on the M-346 programme”, a jet aircraft optimised for advanced military pilot training currently in service with the air forces of Italy, Singapore, Israel, Poland, Greece and Qatar.
The communication systems on board the M-346 enable pilots to communicate with other aircraft and ground stations using the Low VHF, VHF and UHF band frequencies in the 30-400 MHz range. Communications can take place in unencrypted or secure mode. The latter combines “frequency-hopping” technology with cryptography, allowing only “friendly” recipients with the correct information and codes to decipher the signals sent.
Identification systems, on the other hand, allow an aircraft to be identified as a friend or foe by other aircraft equipped with interrogation equipment or secondary ground-based radar. As well as transmitting codes that serve to identify the aircraft, these systems can transmit additional data enabling it to be located with greater precision. Here too, identification can be unencrypted for certain types of interrogation, or encrypted for certain military interrogations that only permit “friendly” recipients with the correct cryptographic keys to decipher the signals sent.
The biggest challenge that Giuseppe has ever faced in the company, calling upon all his abilities and skills, has been working on the development of a new identification installation for integration on board the training aircraft (also in the M-346 “light combat” Fighter-Attack version), completing the qualification process within the required time frame.
According to Giuseppe, working at Leonardo provides an opportunity to be in close contact with a "wide array of professional and high-technology fields in which a young graduate can find home and fully express his or her abilities”. Working in a team, moreover, creates a “cooperative and friendly atmosphere that gives you the chance to grow together with the whole team, surpassing limits that you would never have thought it possible to overcome on your own”.