Research and Development

 

We spend around 10% of our annual turnover on research and development activities to achieve our aim of delivering Customer value through innovation.  This compares with a UK average of less than 5% for FTSE-100 manufacturers (source: The Manufacturer).  As well as conducting research projects in-house, we undertake collaborative projects with UK universities with whom we maintain strong links.

 

Current and recent research and development projects

 

•System-of-Systems Engineering: based on an earlier collaboration with the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences at Durham University, our recent work with the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at Sheffield University has focused on the validation of systems-of-systems in advanced manufacturing.  This work was carried out with the aid of a Technology Strategy Board grant.

 

•Enterprise SPIRIT: following our collaboration with the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences at Durham University, we are developing a system-of-systems engineering toolset based on our established SPIRIT interoperability management process and utilising IBM® Rational® software.

 

•North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Industrial Advisory Group (NIAG) sub-groups: we regularly participate in NIAG sub-groups, which are aimed at enabling industrial technology development that could be included in the work of NATO.  We have made active contributions to sub-groups on unmanned vehicle autonomy, an interoperable command and control data link for unmanned airborne vehicles, a common control station for unmanned vehicles, and on the processing exploitation, and dissemination of imagery.

 

 •Alphonso: we are developing a service-oriented approach to the definition and development of platform data link implementations.  This simplifies the definition of Information Exchange Requirements (IERs) and provides improved data link support to the military system-of-systems.