UK to lead NATO’s 2024 rapid response force

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  May 22, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  BAE Makes Big Bet On Small Companies: FAST Labs

  By THERESA HITCHENS BOSTON: BAE Systems, the third-largest defense contractor in the world, is funding innovative small startups to get innovative technology quickly to its Defense Department customers. Through an initiative called FAST Labs, BAE is both providing seed capital directly to startups and funding a number of accelerators to widen the potential market. The standard tactics include simply buying a smaller company to gain its technology or investing in a startup in order to control the direction of its research. Instead, BAE's FAST Labs is attempting to serve as a middle man connecting startups with DoD customers and BAE's various units. “By giving [the startups] the feasibility money, we can expose them to those harsh requirements that exist in the aerospace and defense world, but we can also in turn do social engineering inside our company,” Jerry Wohletz, the vice president and general management of BAE FAST Labs, told me. The idea is to introduce the startups' designs to BAE's factory and engineering work force, he said, “because we need to get it out of R&D land and get it into those products and services” that BAE knows its defense customers are looking for. FAST Labs is focused on research related to next-generation electronics, intelligent autonomous systems, cyber, electronic warfare, and sensors and processing. Wohletz explained that BAE does in-house research on capabilities that are solely of interest to DoD and the Intelligence Community, but it is reaching out to startups in order to partner on products and services based on commercial market needs. “A lot of aerospace and defense companies have venture capital funds,” Wohletz said. “That's not what we are trying to do. This is not an equity play to drive bottom line performance. We talk here about innovation velocity. We want speed to market.” Therefore, BAE is also putting its money — but more importantly its time — into a number of technology accelerators, such as Techstars in Boston, Capitol Factory in Austin, Texas, and MASSChallenge with hubs in both cities. FAST Labs has a team of scouts whose job is to attend pitches all across the country. “This is not based on ownership. We leave them their freedom,” Francesca Scire-Scappuzzo, who heads the scout team, told me. “We want innovation not just to support our market, we want to support their own innovation” for the commercial market. “Other defense contractors are trying to get involved with venture capital, but they for the most part don't really get it. BAE was in early, and they had the benefit of being linked with us,” Lt. Col. Dave Harden, chief operating officer of AFWERX, the Air Force's innovation hub, told me during the Techstars Air Force Accelerator Demo Day here last Thursday. Indeed, BAE cosponsored the event, and put upfront investment in at least three of 10 start-up companies participating. Neither Wohletz or Scire-Scappuzzo would tell me the size of BAE's budget for startup investment, but Wohletz said “it's getting bigger every year.” Further, the company is using accelerators not just to help itself innovate, Wohletz said, but also to find foreign companies to partner with in bids where the buying country requires offsets, such as India. “It's a completely different way of looking at this than we have done in the past,” he summed up. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/05/bae-makes-big-bet-on-small-companies-fast-labs/

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  December 10, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  New Images Of The Tempest Sixth-Generation Aircraft Revealed During UK Industry Engagement Event

  Development for the new Tempest sixth-generation fighter is moving on with some revolutionary concepts. Team Tempest and the Royal Air Force recently held a virtual event to provide an update about the development opportunities of the new sixth generation aircraft to industry and government representatives from Northern Ireland, the first of a series of events to engage with industries across the UK. Within the press release there is also some new renderings of the aircraft which, we have to note, is not in its final shape as it's being designed “from the inside out” and the airframe's exterior design may change to reflect changes in the internal systems. According to the press release, “Delegates heard from Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Wigston and other RAF senior leaders who highlighted how Team Tempest is taking a revolutionary approach to partnership, engaging with a wide range of leading companies, SMEs and academia to bring leading innovators into the endeavour and ensure the UK remains at the leading edge of Combat Air systems development. The RAF Capability leadership team highlighted updates in emerging strategy and identified examples of innovation and future opportunities. Key members from the Team Tempest industry partner community also provided attendees with updates on the programme and explained how Tempest is working in radical ways to develop world-leading capability, with a focus on affordability and efficiency.” Team Tempest is currently made of the core industry partners BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Leonardo UK and MBDA UK, which were joined last year by Leonardo Italy, Elettronica, Avio Aero, MBDA Italy, Saab and GKN Aerospace Sweden and, more recently, by Thales UK, Bombardier Belfast, Collins Aerospace, GE Aviation UK, GKN Aerospace, Martin Baker and QinetiQ. A widespread industry participation is considered essential for the programme to bring the best expertise to work on the more than 60 technology demonstrations which are currently in progress. According to a statement shared by the UK Ministry of Defence and the core industry partners, “Tempest is one of the UK's most ambitious technological endeavours and designed to deliver a highly advanced, adaptable combat air system to come into service from the mid-2030s. This next generation combat aircraft, which forms part of a wider combat air system, will exploit new technologies as they evolve to respond to the changing nature of the battlespace, addressing increasingly high-tech and complex threats and conflict.” Back in October, engineers working on the project revealed some of the highly innovative systems that are being developed for Tempest as part of the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI) programme. Here is what has been disclosed to the public so far. Leonardo, which is the project lead for electronics, is developing a new radar technology called Multi-Function Radar Frequency System. The new sensor will reportedly collect and process 10'000 times more data than existing systems, or “equivalent to the internet traffic of a large city every second”, providing the operators with a clear view of the battlespace and of potential targets. According to the company, complete sub-systems have already been built and successfully tested, paving the way eventually to future airborne testing. BAE Systems if working on another revolutionary concept, the “wearable cockpit”. In this case, the cockpit as we know it, full of switches, gauges and screens, becomes completely digital and all physical controls are replaced by Augmented and Virtual Reality systems. The new cockpit would be projected inside the pilot's helmet and completely customizable according to the pilot's preference and mission's needs. As human-AI teaming, a virtual copilot is being developed to interact with the pilot and provide support during the flight. “Psycho-physiological” technologies are also being trialed to study the operator's physical and cognitive processes to better understand increasing exertion, stress, workload and fatigue. According to the company, some of these technologies are being tested controlled test flight conditions aboard the Typhoon to inform further development. MBDA UK is also working on the wearable cockpit concept to integrate weapons systems information and operations. Rolls-Royce is working on the advanced combustion system technology that will power Tempest. The next-generation system is being designed to be hotter than previous ones to increase the efficiency of the engine, its range and speed, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Together with the higher-temperature combustion, there will be a new thermal management system that will use the turbine as a heat sink to recycle thermal energy, removing the need for overboard venting and improving the efficiency, and an increased electrical power production, reportedly in the order of one megawatt, that will be used to power all the aircraft's subsystems. This follows the assessment by Rolls Royce that future fighter aircraft will have unprecedented levels of electrical power demand and thermal load that need to be managed accordingly to maintain the airframe's low observability. Being more specific, the company stated that they will integrate an Electrical Embedded Starter Generator that will function both as an APU and as an electrical generator after the engine is spooled up. The Tempest is expected to have also his own loyal wingman, currently being developed as the Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA) concept. According to the MoD, LANCA will offer “increased protection, survivability and information for the manned aircraft – and could even provide an unmanned combat air ‘fleet' in the future.” A demonstration project, called “Moquito” and comparable to the Skyborg program of the U.S. Air Force, is currently in its first phase of evaluation. Three teams, Boeing Defence UK, Team Avenger (led by Blue Bear Systems Research), and Team Blackdawn (Callen-Lenz, Bombardier Belfast and Northrop Grumman UK), submitted designs for the flight demonstrations phase, which could begin in 2022-2023, after two finalists are selected during second phase of evaluation. LANCA will reportedly be a transonic aircraft costing one-tenth of a fighter aircraft, able to employ multi-role sensors, Electronic Warfare suites and both air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons. The unmanned aircraft project, led by the RAF Rapid Capabilities Office and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, originated in 2015, three years before the Tempest announcement. While a timeline for its entry into service has not been disclosed, the LANCA may be first deployed alongside the Typhoon and the F-35, before the entry into service of the new Tempest in 2035. https://theaviationist.com/2020/12/09/new-images-of-the-tempest-sixth-generation-aircraft-revealed-during-uk-industry-engagement-event/

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  March 11, 2020 | International, Land, C4ISR

  Saab to Provide Mid-Life Extension for UK’s Arthur Systems

  March 10, 2020 - Saab has received an order from the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence for a mid-life extension and support for the Arthur weapon locating system. The order value is 482 million SEK and was booked in Q4 2019. Arthur protects forces and civilians by providing warning of incoming fire and is also used for tasks including counterbattery missions and fire control. The mid-life extension will represent a major programme of obsolescence management by the insertion of modern technology, ensuring that this critical operational counter-fire capability can be sustained on a cost-effective basis through to its extended out-of-service date. “Our Arthur systems have contributed to protecting UK forces for more than 15 years. We look forward to continuing to strengthen the UK's weapon locating capability for years to come,” says Anders Carp, Senior Vice President and Head of Saab's business area Surveillance. Deliveries of the mid-life extension will take place between 2022 and 2023. The support contract covers 2020-2026. Saab will carry out the work in Gothenburg, Sweden, with support also taking place at 5th Regiment Royal Artillery's Marne Barracks in Catterick, UK. Arthur is known in the UK as the Mobile Artillery Monitoring Battlefield (MAMBA) radar. “MAMBA has long proven itself as a battle-winning capability, protecting civilians and troops on operations for many years. Our troops in Catterick will work alongside our counterparts at Saab to ensure this life-saving piece of equipment remains in service for the next six years”, says Jeremy Quin MP, the UK's Minister for Defence Procurement. The UK received the first Arthur systems from Saab in 2003, and the systems have supported operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. For further information, please contact: Saab Press Centre, +46 (0)734 180 018 presscentre@saabgroup.com www.saabgroup.com www.saabgroup.com/YouTube Follow us on twitter: @saab Saab serves the global market with world-leading products, services and solutions within military defence and civil security. Saab has operations and employees on all continents around the world. Through innovative, collaborative and pragmatic thinking, Saab develops, adopts and improves new technology to meet customers' changing needs. View source version on Saab: https://saabgroup.com/media/news-press/news/2020-03/saab-to-provide-mid-life-extension-for-uks-arthur-systems/