Porton Down -- On the 26 May, SELEX Galileo, a Finmeccanica Company, played a key part in the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD)’s trials being carried out under the Electro-Magnetic Remote Sensing (EMRS) Defence Technology Centre (DTC).

Since the start of the DTC initiative in 2003, SELEX Galileo has led the EMRS DTC consortium’s efforts to manage this £42M collaborative research programme, a key building block in the UK's military sensing research programme.

Working closely with the UK MoD and a range of UK Industry partners, the trials involved the Company gathering data from a number of its latest sensors with a view to improving the technology behind them. SELEX Galileo also proved new ways of exploiting the data collected from the Company and partner’s sensors for the benefit of troops on the ground.

The trials provided an important opportunity for partners in Government and Industry to work together to solve some of the problems facing troops in the field. SELEX Galileo’s participation in the trials is a confirmation of the Company’s commitment to research for the development of new technologies able to give troops the situational awareness they need.

The MoD’s event included a range of static and dynamic scenarios including those relating to the IED life-cycle and its disruption, as well as the tracking of ground targets, with SELEX Galileo being involved in trials covering both air and ground sensing capabilities. The air trials included the Company’s proven PicoSAR Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, while the ground trials involved the Company’s Burst Illumination Ladar (BIL), the state-of-the-art Harrier thermal imaging camera and Nexsense C chemical detector.

SELEX Galileo’s PicoSAR radar was integrated into two helicopters, each radar being teamed with an Industrial partner’s surveillance turret. As well as collecting data for future research use, the output from the two PicoSAR radars was then exploited by a SELEX Galileo-UK Industry team to provide a dual-radar Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) capability to more accurately track land vehicles.

On the ground, SELEX Galileo’s BIL, which provides increased target identification ranges during the day and at night, operated in both 2D and 3D active imaging modes. New techniques designed to improve imaging through atmospheric turbulence such as heat haze were then evaluated by another collaboration between SELEX Galileo and UK Industry. The Nexsense C chemical detector also collected data for use in future efforts to improve the system.

Electo-Magnetic Remote Sensing (EMRS) Defence Technology Centre (DTC) is a partnership between the UK MoD, industry and the science base working to develop military sensing technology for future defence needs. Formed in 2003, the EMRS DTC is managed by an industrial consortium led by SELEX Galileo. The EMRS DTC industrial consortium comprises: SELEX Galileo Ltd, Thales UK Ltd, BAE Systems Insyte and Roke Manor Research Ltd.

PicoSAR, the compact and lightweight ground surveillance AESA radar, provides all-weather surveillance for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), fixed-wing and helicopter Platforms.

SELEX Galileo
29.05.2010