successfully in more than 70 satellite programs. Gore cables have gone to Mars in NASA rovers and to the moon in seismographic equipment. When woven into the outer layer of astronauts' space suits, Gore fibers resist degradation from ultraviolet rays and reliably withstand temperature extremes.
Protective clothing also featured on the awesome display stand at EADS, Anika Patel, SAE-UK PR Manager tried on the latest body armour which includes the Navi-pad palm-held technology. As shown in the image left in a short period of time it was possible to adorn all the gear and begin working with the palm-held technology. A small gathering of on-lookers stood nearby watching and suitably enterntained. Navi-pad technology is particularly interesting because it displays not only maps of local terrain but also the location of assets such as tanks and infantry, right down to the single soldier. Helen Hopkins of EADS talked the process through with SAE-UK Publisher Jon Masding as seen below. Images from the Navi-pad can be shared on the battlefield via a protected network. Currently an intermediate level resolution offers images from the onboard camera to be shared quickly. As with all technology of this kind higher resolution units are in development. The sharing of data of this kind complements traditional voice traffic and this is what the DefenceIntegation.org magazine is all about.
The subject of protective clothing deserves closer inspection. Being so heavily represented at the show implies that either the MOD is making substantial purchases or has done so recently. Whilst the weight of the armor that we tried on was substantial it provides the same protection if not better than suits presently deployed in-theatre which can weigh up to twice as much. Clearly this is a serious issue facing the MOD.
Also at the EADS stand we tried out Pro-View a virtual simulation comprising of a head set unit which not only relays images before the person’s eyes but also tracks their
movement and feeds that back into the simulation along with bio-feed back from a hand held glove through which controls in the simulation can be manipulated. To date this simulator has been used on the Euro-fighter project to assist in the training of pilots . The system is pictured left in the panorama above.
Unmanned Air, Land and Sea Vehicles
There were very many instances at DSEi of planes for which pilots are not required onboard. Unmanned vehicles continue to develop at an alarming rate. QinetiQ revealed to us that they had achieved record flight durations in their most recent unmanned vehicle. In its first record attempt it
achieved 54 hours in flight continuously with successful transmission of power on the solar cells in the wing to the drive unit, only returning to earth as a result of a glitch in the propulsion system. Far greater durations are anticipated from this technology and QinetiQ, a two billon dollar a year business is well placed in the market to achieve this.
Meanwhile on the BAE Systems stand after trialing some of their land based vehicles shown at the end of this article we were given a guided tour of BAE systems autonomous vehicles.
Central to the presentation on autonomous vehicles from BAE Systems was their recent development of an unmanned plane which actually has no remote control feature; it will be set mission objectives, destination and other guidance parameters but will evolve its own flight plan en-route. What makes this vehicle different is that it will provide no option for the remote control of the plane. Traditionally with unmanned air vehicles constant pilotage remotely may be required at all times. Whilst this may remove the danger of flying reconnaissance missions and allow for pilots to work shifts during any single flight because they are actually located at the air base this vehicle will remove all of those requirements, deciding its own in flight course corrections. BAE Systems have gone even further in the production of their latest unmanned air vehicle, HERTI, not only does this vehicle pilot itself but it can also filter its onboard reconnaissance data to present information updates only when it thinks it needs to. Otherwise, unremarkable reconnaissance data is not transmitted in flight; this brings down considerably the overall electro-magnetic emissions of the vehicle. No emissions means no detection. If successfully deployed these developments constitute a major development in unmanned vehicle technology.
Following on from the last edition of DefenceIntegration.org we saw the Talisman unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV). The Talisman UUV has a carbon fibre body produced by Lola as part of their collaboration with BAE Systems. On the Lola stand we were pictured with a range of vehicles from
