|
30 Apr 08. The new Chief Scientific Adviser at the Ministry of Defence Professor Mark Welland FRS FREng, gave an upbeat introduction to the next stage of the MoD’s Grand Challenge, held at the QE 2 Centre in London on Wednesday April 30th He succeeded Professor Sir Roy Anderson FRS, who initiated the Grand Challenge last year with procurement supremo, Lord Drayson. Sir Roy left to rejoin Imperial College, pending his appointment as Rector this summer. (See: BATTLESPACE UPDATE Vol.9 ISSUE 31, 02 Aug 2007, GRAND CHALLENGE WINNERS ANNOUNCED).
The Grand Challenge was launched in November 2006 by the then Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, Lord Drayson. Twenty-three teams subsequently entered the competition and eleven teams will now progress to the summer finale, subject to passing a final safety check in June.
Professor Welland told the audience that, “What we need is the right framework to be quick to react to new threats, which is what the Grand Challenge is all about. The MoD will provide a detailed Defence Technology plan on the internet by the end of the year. This will show what we need and we will also be guided buy our military colleagues who are seeking better protection for their troops on the battlefield. We are also looking at ways where we can be less dependant on fossil fuels. To reach our audience we will be revamping our publication which will be produced quarterly under the name of Codex – The Journal of Defence Engineering & Science. The first Edition will feature coverage of today’s event.”
Professor Welland also announced the setting up of a new Centre for Defence Enterprise on the Harwell Campus. The facility will be opened in a few months time and will host seminars to discuss military technology. It will also provide facilities to bring seed-corn funding into new defence technology start-ups.
Grand Challenge Competitors
The 6 winners of the Funded Segment announced in August last year included:
1. The Stellar Team of Stellar Services, Bluebear Systems, Selex, TRW Connect, MSV and Cranfield University offering a Saturn Integrated Micro UAV and UGV with a control station fusing both technologies.
2. SWARM Systems Team of SWARM Systems, Osran and the University of Surrey, offering the Owl lightweight Rotor UAV with three cameras.
3. The MIRA Team of MIRA, ERA, BAE Systems, Warwick University and the Royal Grammar school at Guildford offering a land-based optical system.
4. The Tumbleweed Team of Union of Marketing, BAE, AEI and MBDA offering a small UAV with a stabilized EO system.
5. The Silicon Valley Team of Silicon Valley, IDUS, Moon Buggy, Kingston University, offering a fixed ground fusion system
Ten teams chose to fund their own Challenge and these included Quartex from QinetiQ offering the Tiger Multiple Platform UAV; Thales, Reading University, Cranfield, Loughborough and Six Form schools; Team Locust of Bath and Portsmouth Universities offering multiple UAV sensors; A team offering an UAV with an optical thermal sensor; The Mindshield Team offering the Pestudo UAV and tethered relay station; Oxford Brooks University offering a Ground Robot UGNB supporting a tethered air vehicle; Sagention Ltd offering two small stabilized helicopters; Dragonfly Airsystems, Birmingham University, Greece Aerospace offering a micro UAV; The MBDA Team offering the Nemicis Senor Processing solution and Warwick University offering mobile phone technology to look through walls.
The Exhibition showed a number of systems currently being developed by teams from universities, schools and private business from across the UK, as part of the MOD's Grand Challenge competition. The challenge will culminate in August when vehicles battle it out at Copehill Down, a village specially built by the military for urban warfare training.
Teams have been challenged to develop highly autonomous aerial and ground vehicles, which can detect and identify a range of threats encountered by UK troops on operations and which will be recreated during the August event- such as marksmen, roadside bombs and armed militia. Machines will incorporate highly sophisticated communications technologies that can relay this information back to team members, and ultimately to commanders on the ground.
Baroness Ann Taylor, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support said, "We are continually looking for new ways to counter the threats faced by our Armed Forces on operations. It is vital that the latest technologies are rapidly incorporated into equipment for our troops.
"I want to congratulate the eleven teams that have made it to this stage of the competition, and wish them the best of luck for this summer's finale. Their efforts could one day bring life-saving solutions for troops on the ground."
Vehicles on display at the event included mini helicopters, flying robots working in tandem and unmanned ground vehicles kitted out with high-tech sensors.
Also on show were a range of state of the art sensors and robotics which are being developed by Defence Technology Centres. These are partnerships between MoD, industry and the science base which are exploiting cutting edge science to benefit defence. These included the latest high definition thermal imagers, pilot navigation aids and proposals for a new type of security scanner capable of detecting threats at 20 metres.
There were a number of excellent exhibits, but two in particular caught the Editor’s eye, Team Locust and the Silicon Valley Group Team
Team Locust
Team Locust, headed by Rob Mullins also has technology from Bath and Portsmouth Universities.
Rob Mullins showed us the extent to which Team Locust has used micro electronic techniques to engineer cameras and radios into a UAV which weighs less than 63 grams and has a cost of less than $100.00 which makes it almost throwaway.
“The micro-UAV is made of light plastic and is powered by two micro-electric motors which allow it to scan a remote area of 300m using the micro camera. The data is sent by on-board micro radios to the Satmap PDA which gives an exact position of the area. In addition, given the size, weight and cost of the UAV, it can also be used as a remote sensing system, being bale to fly into buildings to give situational awareness over a period of time to detect movements and changes. The radios are self-healing and mounted in a reinforced plastic ‘Egg’, as are the cameras. Noise detectors, tremblers, and other electronic units can be mounted in the Egg. The 4-Channel radios are multi-frequency hoping and self-forming and thus can form a network of up to 30 systems and can transmit or receive information at up to 100Kbits per second and with an additional Power Amplifier of 100MWatts can transmit up to 5 miles.
Satmap
The Satmap Active 10 PDA system, forms part of the Team Locust offering. It gives the user almost military GPS technology at a fraction of the price but with added functionality.
The maps are supplied on map cards that simply plug straight into the Active 10.
No other computer or equipment is needed: this is a stand alone system that will
work straight out of the box.
Over 150 map titles are available, covering the whole of Great Britain at 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 scales. Other country maps can be added by downloads to the PDA.
The Satmap Active 10 is purpose built for rugged use, offering a long battery life in a waterproof and shockproof casing. It has some of the most advanced navigation technology available:
Electronic compass
Direction indicator
On board route planning
Map orientation
A full range of ancillaries are also available, including:
Bike mount
Rechargeable battery
Replaceable screen cover
Deluxe carry case
Silicon Valley Group Team
The Silicon Valley consortium (Team Leader: Norman Gregory) was established to take forward a number of separate elements of research in technology and conceptual goals for unmanned vehicles, with the objective of producing a complete system that would be semi-autonomous and would be able to detect, identify, monitor and report the position of a number of specific threats within an urban environment.
The consortium comprises the following organisations:
Silicon Valley Group
IDUS Consultancy Ltd
Kingston University
University of Reading
Smith Engineering (GB) Ltd
The Challenge
To develop a robust autonomous system that provides real-time or near real-time intelligence data against certain types of threats in an urban environment is a challenge in itself. To have a system that has extremely low visual and acoustic signatures with resistance to countermeasures is certainly a grand challenge!
The ground-breaking RoboHumatics© principles and tuned image recognition software being developed by the two Universities in the consortium, together with a novel solution to detect IED command wires by IDUS Consultancy, provides an extremely sound base upon which to develop the Silicon Valley semi-autonomous portable threat identification system (APHIDS).
The System
The Silicon Valley APHIDS initiative is based upon a user-optimised command/control system that has the capability to control multiple platforms and sensor suites, both air and ground based, as well as having a modular interface potential to process sensor data and output with an effective HMI display. The integration and processing of electro-optical and audio sensor data, together with specialist targeted other data, enables a high degree of confidence to be established in data capture and threat assessment. The consortium does not underestimate the challenge of integrating a number of emerging technologies, but believes that the unique range of skills amongst its members bodes well in its endeavours to produce a prototype APHIDS system that will be functional in summer 2008.
The Silicon Valley consortium has incorporated a defined exploitation strategy
into the programme with high hopes in developing a number of related and valuable products from this interesting research project.
Richard May of the IDUS Consultancy explained the deployment of the Moonbuggy vehicles which act in tandem with the UAV segment. The Moonbuggies were developed by Smith Engineering.
The Diesel Moonbuggy unmanned ground vehicle is designed as a heavy payload sensor platform.
Able to be rapidly deployed by a single operator the Moonbuggy UGV is ideally suited for emergency incident support, large area survey and rapid deployment.
The Moonbuggy EOD unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is designed for rapid deployment and use in dealing with EOD and IED situations. The Moonbuggy UGV can be used in any CBRN role where remote inspection and handling is required
Able to be transported using a standard off road trailer the Moonbuggy EOD robot can be deployed using a single operator. With a top speed of 12mph it can be quickly deployed to a work area.
The Moonbuggy UGV has a modular control system and easily serviced diesel engine which gives reliable field operation without the need for specialist support.
The arm is fitted with a forward facing forked bucket with optional gripping fingers.
Sensors
The moonbuggy UGV can carry a range of optional sensors including Radiation, gas and biological. Readings from the sensors are overlaid onto the video output display.
Control options
433MHz RF 1km+
50m cable Umbilical
1Km+ single use fiber optic cartridge
Video transmission options
1.3GHz 1Km near line of sight RF link
50m cable Umbilical
1Km+ single use fiber optic cartridge
Video system options
Thermal imager
Video system
4 camera system with on screen display of vehicle data. Wide angle navigation cameras front and rear, Pan-tilt zoom and arm camera. Each camera can be viewed individually full screen as part of a quad display.
Power
The Moonbuggy Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) when equipped with stretchers can recover two casualties over rough terrain. The Moonbuggy can also carry radiation detector and other environmental sensors. The Moonbuggy UGV with its six wheel drive and high manoeuvrability can be used in areas inaccessible to standard vehicles.
It can take up to 8 rescuers to recover two casualties over rough terrain. Using the Moonbuggy UGV the two casualties can be recovered using only two rescuers offering reduced risk to personnel. It can also be used to monitor the incident and provide live video feed to a command post and medical personnel.
The Silicon Valley Group Team was one of the six teams chosen for funding last year.
Page | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Previous Page
|
