We have been incredibly hectic over the past few months with various R&D funding proposals being made to DASA (the UK Defence Accelerator associated with DSTL Porton Down) and several different market developments evolving to the point where working partnership arrangements are being put in place to jointly develop and exploit the new opportunities, which are as follows:
Cavonix and AIM Technologies – Ground Penetrating Radar and 4D Radar Development
Cavonix is part of the AIM Technologies operation, dealing with ground vehicle autonomy systems, one of which may well also have an important application on Uncrewed Air Systems (UAS) commonly known as drones.
Autonomous Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGVs) all currently use cameras and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) to sense their surrounding environment and react appropriately to it, but these systems are unsuitable for the military environment which frequently involves driving through water, mud, and thick dust clouds. The Cavonix experts recognised this a long time ago and focused on the development of other ranging systems such as 4D Radar and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to provide reliable navigation information; but so far, only for civilian applications such as airports, docks, manufacturing plants and agriculture.
We now have an agreement with Cavonix and AIM under which our UK group partner, ABBS has the exclusive rights to market and sell the 4D Radar and GPR technology to the defence market, which effectively gives us really advanced technology products to take to a market that urgently needs them. We have found that the leading European UGV players such as Milrem and Rheinmetall have not yet adopted either of these technologies on current vehicles, although Rheinmetall has very recently latched onto the GPR system potential and completed a deal with the Canadian producer of a GPR system to develop it for their vehicles. In our view, this strongly validates the utility of the concept.
Importantly, the technology Cavonix has developed is covered by current patent applications which potentially gives us a protected market position.
A salient example of the need for the technology is that the UK Army has decided to defer the purchase of any UGVs for the next 5 to 10 years because the current autonomy systems based on cameras and LIDAR are not good enough. In trials they have found that the UGVs become a burden on troops, reducing their ability to generate momentum during actions. Nevertheless, many other countries and the US Army are continuing the rapid development of UGV’s, however, the UGV’s are not reliably fully autonomous and currently the US Army is using an armoured vehicle with three troops to follow and control the vehicle. This is clearly not taking the troops or expensive and vulnerable armoured vehicles out of harm’s way, which are major objectives of using UGVs. Conveniently, the person that manages ASST works at the US Army GVSC (Ground Vehicle Survivability Centre) and is the Systems Engineer looking after all the US participants in the US Army UGV development programme. Hence, we have a potentially excellent entry into the US market when we are ready to do so.
Our strong belief is that the 4D Radar developments on which Cavonix is focussed will become the ‘game-changer’ that will help solve the current UGV autonomy problems. We will be proposing this to all the key players and seeking the approximately £300,000 R&D funds to fully develop the processing system and embed it on a chip. We project this will reduce the current cost of the electronics and sensors from £7,000 to maybe £1,500, a level where it will be an attractive solution. Cost reduction is a key theme for all such defence items now as the basic military strategy moves from small numbers of very expensive, highly protected (but still very vulnerable) systems such as tanks to large numbers of cheap systems that can overwhelm an enemy and be regarded as disposable.
Counter-UAS Technology Development
A further very exciting opportunity exists using the 4D Radar/AI system in a Counter-UAS role, which is currently a critical requirement, given the threat that drones pose in any current conflict situation. The counter-UAS drone needs to identify and navigate to intercept the enemy drone and we believe that the Cavonix 4D radar should is ideal for this role. We expect to start discussing a collaborative development agreement with another leading player in the UK defence drone business, who were acquired by BAe Systems earlier this year. As with the UGV market, the cost of the system is an important issue and we are again pursuing the approximately £300,000 funding required to get the data processing system embedded on a chip through this collaborative agreement. This could be followed by further funded work for Cavonix to develop their own radar systems designed specifically to optimise the performance for different environments.
The same systems can also be used for “detect and avoid” roles – whereby the drone can detect the presence of nearby drones and avoid collisions. Whilst this obviously has some interest to the defence sector, it is also a critical issue for civilian drones, as the number of drones and eVTOLs in service increases; they need to ensure that the air-space ahead is clear of any unmanned drones.
Belly Plate and VGAM™ System Enquiry
We recently received this enquiry from the UK-based subsidiary of a South African parent company, which has invested a lot of money over 7 years in developing a wide range of tactical vehicles based on a Toyota 79 chassis.
The UK subsidiary is responsible for all North European sales and apparently, they have many prospective sales in the pipeline – including bidding for a large contract in South Africa for over 400 vehicles. They currently do not have a belly plate design while some customers are asking for a level of mine blast protection, but they are also keen to offer the VGAM™ global acceleration mitigation system to protect the occupants.
Taking the VGAM system to production standard for these vehicles is unlikely to be practical for cost and certification reasons, but we can quote for it and we can certainly provide different options for the belly plate requirement due to the work we have previously done on the Toyota Land Cruiser. However, the enquiry for the VGAM system does reflect the potential need for the new breed of much lighter armoured vehicles to have it installed to prevent acceleration injuries to the occupants, at least it demonstrates that the need is recognised by people in the industry.
Discussion of their detailed requirements is now ongoing.
Major UK Defence Company CASEVAC Drone Safety System Project
Whilst this project with a major UK defence company has been delayed due to the project team being allocated to another more urgent programme, the Project Manager recently confirmed that they are still very keen to proceed with the planned retrorocket and parachute project as soon as their Senior Management gives the green light.
Our UK Safety System patent covers the optimised technology required for this application and this has also been accepted in Europe and is awaiting a decision by us on whether to proceed with what would be a very expensive exercise to get a lot of European countries covered. Hence, we have just suggested to the UK defence company that they might consider licensing the patent so they have exclusivity in Europe as well as the UK. We await their response.
It is worth noting that another similar project has just been awarded in the US to Lift Aircraft by the US Army, and we will be contacting them shortly to see if there is any interest in working with us on their project. We do have a US patent very similar to the UK and European variants. See:
Product Development Focus – Civilian Humanitarian Demining Technology
As far as our ‘internal’ product development is concerned we are focussed on developing a fully autonomous, remotely operated mine clearance system for civilian demining based on:
A drone-based system to detect surface-laid mines and lay Thermite burn-out munitions on them.
A UGV carrying a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to detect buried mines and Unexploded Ordnance (UXO). The drone as in a) above then lands, bores down to the mine and deposits the Thermite burn-out munition on it.
Some or all of the funds required to develop these systems may come from the current DASA R&D proposals, but if that route is unsuccessful, we will fund this work using any available ABBS funds. There is already a long-term world-wide market for this technology, and we have direct contacts with the key players in the de-mining industry such as the HALO Trust and in Ukraine where the requirement is acute.
We are looking to reach a long-term agreement with our partner who will supply the drone and participate in the development for the two DASA R&D proposals which include this technology. This agreement would be to fully productionise the whole system and jointly market the products.
The advantages of the system i.e. being fully autonomous and capable of remote operation is that it removes the risk to the mine clearance operatives. The current method is for each mine detected to be cleared manually, with obvious risks to the people involved.
Additionally, it is better to burn out the mines rather than detonating them, which can cause other mines close by to be displaced and covered by ejected soil so that they are then harder to find and destroy, with far greater risk to the personnel involved.
DoD Foreign Technology Assessment Scheme (FTAS) Proposals
All the different elements of the technology identified above can be proposed for FTAS funding at about the $150,000 level initially for a basic evaluation of the potential. We have established contact with the US DEVCOM FTAS operation based in London and will be preparing proposals for such as the 4D Radar and the Counter UAS technology ASAP.
Traumatic Brain Injury R&D Proposal
This Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programme call happens annually, and the previous two applications were rejected. The objections of the assessors of the last submission clearly stated that they couldn’t see how working with mice would relate to what was happening inside human skulls, a comment with which I fully agree. The mouse-orientated proposal arose from the previous R&D focus of the academic who drafted the proposal. We used this academic because they have the research credibility combined with university administrative back-up to lead the proposal and manage the project finances. One of the project contributors – Warren N. Hardy, PhD who is Director of the VT Center for Injury Biomechanics may be willing to lead the project when the call comes again next year. He would propose a different research approach having previously developed and worked with surrogate skulls fitted with internal vibration and pressure sensors, as we originally wanted to proceed.
It’s worth remembering that the US Army Ground Vehicle Survivability Centre (GVSC) is the main R&D centre for armoured vehicles in the USA and they are also involved in these proposals. The comment has been made by previous assessors that if we prove our theory about the harmful effects of infrasound it could significantly alter the way armoured vehicles are designed. And the project would be fully funded (no contribution from ASST) and worth £4m total over four years although we would only see about £1m of that.
GVSC Testing of the ABBS Active Floor Concept to Prevent Floor Shock Injuries
This full-scale drop test project is covered by the current Co-operative R&D Agreement (CRADA) with the US Army Ground Vehicles System Centre (GVSC) and still awaits our ability to fund it, as we must supply the hardware and cover all of our costs related to the test. The GVSC Vehicle Interiors expert is keen to do this test as she thinks that the concept looks substantially better than their current standard systems. Given a successful result this could lead to the design being incorporated in new US Army vehicles so we would very much like to carry out this work when we can.
Twin V-Hull and Spaceframe UGV Design
The basic design concept which provides the inherent high survivability of the vehicle is protected by our current patent application which has already been examined in the UK. The result of the patent examination searches is that nothing significant has previously been proposed for a land vehicle. The examiners’ report reflects the responses I get when asking military and defence industry people if they have seen the design before; their answer invariably being “No”. Remarkably, we appear to have a unique basic design which is potentially applicable for many future UGV designs which need maximum survivability against both mine and ballistic threats.
We have made a few contacts in the industry about the design concept, but everyone is so tied up with urgent issues for Ukraine and as has been noted in the first item above the UGV industry has the fundamental autonomy issue that needs to be solved before considering the issue of the inherent survivability of the design. Hence, we are currently focussed on the many other opportunities open to us for now.
The Dragon Minefield Breaching Vehicle Design
This ultimate Minefield Breaching system is acknowledged by all who see it as being a valid solution to the problem of the vulnerability of the current tank-based breaching systems which use a plough, but rather surprisingly neither the UK nor US Army people who are specifically tasked with “doing minefield breaching better” have taken up the design for further development yet. In the UK the army has referred the concept to DSTL because it is “too low TRL level”. This is surprising given the well-known survivability characteristics of V-hulls. The main problem is that neither the UK nor the USA has the specified budget allocation that the vehicle development requires so it may take a very high-level approach to such as the Pentagon to get the right focus and a budget allocated.
The press has widely covered the fact that Western defence budgets everywhere in the West are focussed on supporting Ukraine with such as 155mm ammunition and air defence systems as well as anti-tank missiles and long-range missiles such as Storm Shadow which are in very short supply and take a long time to produce.
Hence again this simple, but ground-breaking design which is covered by the twin V-hull and spaceframe patent application, and which we believe will meet the Minefield Breaching system performance requirements will have to wait until the current pressure on defence budgets is less and longer-term development funds become available. Very frustrating, but there’s nothing we can do about it except to keep pushing the message out to the right targets, including General Dynamics who manufacture the current US M1150 breaching vehicle, and of course the Pentagon.
Conclusions
Clearly, there is a wealth of opportunities listed above, many more than we could handle all at once, and we will have to be led by where the money is for each development. That is the phase we are currently in, creating these opportunities and waiting to see which mature.