Article
Commercial Technology in the Defence Market
Defence Contracts Bulletin, May 04
Procurement strategy
Defence equipment procurement has long been an expensive, lengthy, process
often with high technical risk.
In response to a capability-gap, the traditional MoD approach has been
to create custom specifications for what it wants without regard to
what it can have. This significantly increases development time and
risk prior to full system qualification. Often the gestation period
is so long that component and technology obsolescence actually occurs
during the development cycle.
The future trend must be to capitalise more on the commercial sector.
The consumer, scientific and industrial sectors are now ripe with highly
advanced technologies from powerful computing platforms through highly
integrated radio technologies, to sophisticated well proven standards
for communication systems, image processing, data security etc. The
defence industry must increasing capitalise on this pool of technology.
Future defence procurement must continually assess the commercial field
and match requirements and performance targets to available and emerging
technology.
From the supplier's perspective: for many it is painful and costly to
embark on the slow and often arduous task of defence contract bidding
- it can be more constructive to be pro-active in the market by stimulating
it with technical ideas and product and system concepts. Never more
so than during the recent downturn in the commercial electronics sector.
Smart acquisition
This more commercially orientated approach is in line with the MoD's mission
of improving the management of its Research and Technology programme and
delivering a better return on its R&D investment. With the split of
DERA into QinetiQ and DstL the MoD has recognised the opportunity to benefit
from the commercial sector and indeed to exploit commercial applications
of its own research through the DDA. Commercial product development companies
such as Plextek Ltd can not only directly participate in the work of such
organisations, but can stimulate the defence market by introducing an
open-minded approach to the application of commercial technology.
The approach is also in line with the MoD's Smart Procurement Initiative,
now dubbed Smart Acquisition, whose objectives are:
- To acquire military capability progressively, at lower risk, and with
optimisation trade-offs between military effectiveness and whole-life
costs.
- To cut the time for key new technologies to be introduced into the
front line.
- To deliver projects that meet or better the time, costs and performance
targets.
- To work closer with industry.
Identify the opportunity
There are two approaches to identifying the potential for commercial technology
in defence applications:
- Identify opportunities to circumvent the need for MIL-spec components
and bespoke design.
- Identify what new applications can be enabled by commercial technologies.
An example of the first approach is Plextek's telemetry unit for the
CAMBS V Sonobouy, from Ultra Electronics. To meet the objectives of substantial
cost reduction and easier manufacture we employed commercial radio-pager
technology and cellular mobile phone components.
Another prime example of the first approach is the Marconi Selina Personal
Role Radio (PRR) providing, front-line short-range communication between
infantry personnel, as part of the Bowman initiative. Achieving a 12 month
schedule to in-service operation, Marconi's PRR employs a modified form
of the IEEE802.11 WLAN radio link protocol and could never have been delivered
within such a timescale without an established commercial radio technology
- fully supported by the component industry.
An example of the second approach is Plextek's Blighter (Battlefield
Light E-scan Radar), described below. This is a product born from the
application of available technology, yielding a short development cycle
and a cost-effective solution to a growing requirement.
Plextek chose, as its application primer, the detection of enemy movement
for battlefield tactical support. Alongside this we looked at what fields
of commercial electronics offered potential to such an application. Our
key candidates were:
- Planar antenna technology.
- Steerable beam antenna technology.
- High speed signal processing platforms.
- Open-standard radio communication technologies such as GSM, Bluetooth,
802.11 WLAN, the emerging 3G cellular technologies including WCDMA,
and GPS.
From these emerged Blighter. This is a man-portable, electronic-scan,
Ku-band radar with integral signal processing unit providing high resolution
Doppler detection, and variable beam-scanning patterns. The antenna unit
is equipped with a GPS receiver to assist with map-overlay and target
location. This battery-powered radar is wireless-networked to a PC or
PDA using an 802.11 WLAN radio link (longer-range radio technology could
be substituted, if required). The entire system is based firmly on the
application of commercial components and technology.
Open-standard network and communications protocols give deployment flexibility.
The use of TCP/IP over wireless LAN for the interface to Blighter opens
up use with a wide range of user-interface terminals and data transport
over a variety of IP-based networks. For example, Blighter units can be
networked with visible and infrared camera systems; and multiple Blighter
units can be networked for wide-area surveillance.
The concept was conceived mid-2003 and we were able to start demonstrating
performance at defence industry shows by autumn 2003. Following this early
exposure, applications for Blighter now include homeland security, area
(barracks, stores, depots) protection, airfield ground movement monitoring,
and border monitoring.
All-round benefits
Using commercial hardware and software platforms substantially reduces
risk; reduces supply chain dependency; achieves faster time to market
and of course reduces R&D expenditure.
There is earlier access to proof-of-concept models and prototypes for
system-trials; benefiting both procurement executive and manufacturer
by expediting creation of procurement specifications and de-risking transfer
to manufacture.
Of course component obsolescence remains a critical factor when selecting
any solution and it may be necessary to design out certain suspect components
in a commercial product - but this is less of a burden than starting from
scratch.
Adoption of international standards in such areas as radio links and
communication protocols capitalises on the man-years of input to date
and the high level of support from the component industry. This also facilitates
planned, low cost, 'technology insertion' whereby, in the event of obsolescence,
an entire sub-system technology is upgraded with a new one.
Defining the hardware logic in a high level language such as VHDL also
reduces vulnerability to component obsolescence by providing portability
between programmable gate array devices. It also enables upgrade to higher
performance or lower cost platforms as they emerge.
Overall, the commercial sector has much to offer the defence market.
We hope for a closer alliance in the years ahead.
Contact details:
Plextek Ltd, London Road, Great Chesterford, Essex CB10 1NY. Tel: +44
(0)1799
533200. Fax: +44 (0)1799 533201. E-mail: mc@plextek.co.uk Website: www.plextek.com
Author profile:
Malcolm Crisp has an engineering background in radio communications development
extending over 36yrs. As a Principal Consultant with Plextek Ltd, Malcolm
has been responsible for programme management and client commercial interfacing
on a number of development projects. Currently, as a member of the strategic
consultancy group, he is engaged in commercial strategy and technical
due-diligence work for clients in the manufacturing and venture capital
sectors.
