Leonardo UK Ltd Public Funding

The KTP project will facilitate the creation of a strategic software architecture digital platform. By incorporating the latest research-driven developments in model-based software engineering, the platform will ensure that the company can optimally drive the engineering and delivery of their complex system of systems.

Microwave and radio-frequency electromagnetic field sensors are key commercial application areas for quantum atomic technology. These unique sensors use atoms excited into "Rydberg states" to unlock capabilities not available through other approaches. Rydberg states are highly excited electronic states of an atom where one outer electron is kicked into a very large orbit around its parent nucleus. Due to the size of these orbits, atoms in a Rydberg state can be extremely sensitive to electric fields and RF radiation. Over recent decades, successive advances in laser science and atomic physics have made it possible to explore these states in a laboratory setting. In the coming decade, we anticipate devices built upon these techniques to become widespread as sensitive probes for electro-magnetic radiation across a range of key applications. In this project, we will demonstrate the feasibility of using ultracold atoms in Rydberg states to detect RF radiation in the increasingly used "very-high-frequency" (VHF) and "ultra-high frequency" (UHF) bands. This will pave the way to field-deployed devices that significantly reduce the space, spectral, and polarisation constraints of standard detection systems.

Project Butterfly brings together a consortium of UK high value and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) organisations working across sectors, along with solution providers and research organisations to share best practice and demonstrate the power of I4.0 to deliver near-term impact on the road to net zero manufacturing. The climate emergency is an important challenge we all face but we cannot wait for new low carbon technology to start transforming our factories. Project Butterfly takes urgent action through cross sectoral collaboration, enabling common problems to be optimally resolved. Developing digital processes with data centric technologies, Project Butterfly aims to significantly reduce industrial waste and improve energy efficiency, making an meaningful environmental impact on the manufacture and processing of the products we use, or consume every day. Small changes can have a big impact, this is known as the butterfly effect. It's this principle that Project Butterfly looks to use to accelerate progress to Net Zero. The Project has a specific focus on improving efficiency in the use of materials and energy by using manufacturing data to optimise processes, increase right first time yield (FTY) and provide visibility of information to everyone in the factory. This can be done by using data to automatically update the schedule to deliver the most efficient use of energy. Using data from the process to improve the process by making it more efficient or increase the right first time yield. As we focus on designing new greener consumer products, Project Butterfly ensures the manufacturing methods are also as environmentally respectful. So whether it's the car you drive to work, the food on your table or the airplane that connects you to the world, it's not only a sustainable product, but it has also been manufactured in a sustainable way.

Highly accurate atomic clocks have a broad and expanding range of vital applications and are used in many aspects of our daily lives. One well-known example is the GPS navigation system which depends on sub-microsecond accurate timing to provide both position and timing information. This information is used in communications systems, telecoms, finance and infrastructure applications, as well as a host of other less obvious places. However, satellite-based systems are vulnerable to external influence and attack. Consequently, many of these dependencies are now exposed, and action is required to make systems that depend on satellite-derived timing information more independent and robust. Timing systems based on trapped ions can deliver significantly improved accuracy over currently available commercial systems. Clocks based on trapped ions will enable both backup and stand-alone systems to be built. Currently, these systems, which give accuracies of 10^-18, similar to an error of one second in the age of the universe, have only been demonstrated in research labs. Furthermore, due to their complexity, power consumption and environmental requirements, these systems are far from portable as well as being too expensive for widespread deployment. The University of Sussex has developed a portable optical atomic reference based on trapped calcium ions probed by a "clock" laser pre-stabilised to a compact optical cavity and, in conjunction with an optical micro-comb, can turn the output of the system into a useable signal. Together these systems function as an atomic clock with the accuracy required to support future communications and infrastructure systems. This project aims to improve and industrialise the current calcium ion clock design, reducing the size and weight of the system and ruggedise it by increasing subsystem integration. This will make it a much more useable product for many systems and should open up a new market for advanced timing devices with a wide range of applications. A portable optical atomic clock system will be developed, and its integration in various applications explored with the combined efforts of the consortium, which comprises of: * TMD Technologies, a leading company in quantum technology development, vacuum electronics and ruggedised electronics for defence applications; * Covesion, experts in nonlinear optics and optical system development; * Chronos Technology, a leader in timing and synchronisation equipment; and the University of Sussex, * Leonardo, a leading system integrator; * BT, a communications services provider focusing on high-speed optical networking technology; * QinetiQ, a science and engineering company operating in the defence sector.

This project brings together expertise and skills from large and small organisations, universities and non-profit research and technology organisations to demonstrate the technological and socio-economic viability of a drone-enabled distribution network for medical items such as organs, blood products, high-value medicines and medical consumables over Scotland. The goal is to design an innovative logistic network capable of providing increased responsiveness and capillarity of medical delivery in urban and rural geography uniquely found in Scotland, while ensuring lower costs, reliability, robustness, safety and regulatory compliance. A digital demonstrator will be created with computer models of the different components of this system of systems, such as a digital model of the drones, the ground infrastructure needed to recharge the vehicles and the system used to manage the traffic of drones while flying. By exploring various operating conditions and different configurations of the network and by ensuring that appropriate market analyses and public perception are accurately taken into consideration, a digital blue print of the drone delivery network will be created connecting potentially hundreds of hospitals, pathology laboratories, distribution centres and GP units. The integration of digital technology demonstration with market analyses, stakeholder engagement and assessment of public perception is a key objective of the project as these elements are recognised barriers to adoption of drone services that need to be addressed to be able to reach a viable and accepted solution and therefore develop this emerging sector which is expected to bring a significant social and economic benefit to Scotland. Regulatory challenges are another key focus area, URANOS aims to address these by conducting a series of live trials aimed to inform the regulatory pathways in the definition of protocols and rules for safe operation of autonomous drones in the same airspace as civil transport aircraft. Despite focussing on such a specific use case as medical delivery and being tailored to the specific geographical region of Scotland, URANOS could also have impact on a larger scale. In addition to the healthcare sector benefits, URANOS will open the way to the deployment of drone-enabled logistics in other sectors of the economy. It will change the way airspace is managed and utilised by manned and unmanned vehicles and will favour the realisation of sustainability goals, such as the carbon neutrality of distribution networks, supporting the energy transition and contributing towards the Scottish Government's target of a 75% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2045\.

To develop the technology for a Compact, High Power Mid-Infrared Slab Laser as a Primary Laser Source

The QuEOD project brings together academic and industrial partners to break through the technology barriers for novel types of time-resolved SWIR detectors and pave the way forwards for UK sovereign supply and leadership. It will to develop a unique supply chain and engage in commercial exploitation for both CMT and GaSb detector technologies for next generation quantum technology applications. Industrial partners include Photon Force (project leader), Leonardo, ArQIT, IQE and QLM. Academic partners are Heriot Watt University, Cardiff University and Sheffield University, and RTO - Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult.

To embed capability in product lifecycle, project, and engineering management, and integrate this within existing processes to implement a robust design and manufacturing process for cooled infrared detectors that will increase productivity and improv yield.

This project will develop a pre-production prototype of a miniature atomic clock for providing precise timing to a variety of critical infrastructure services, such as reliable energy supply, safe transport links, mobile communications, data networks and electronic financial transactions. The precise measurement of time is fundamental to the effective functioning of these services, which currently rely on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) for a timing signal. However, GNSS signals are easily disrupted either accidentally or maliciously, and in prolonged GNSS unavailability, these critical services stop functioning. The reliance on GNSS for precision timing, and the consequent vulnerability of our essential services prompted InnovateUK to commission a report published by London Economics in June 2017\. It estimated the impact on the UK economy of a five day GNSS outage at £5.2B. That message is becoming widely understood and is creating a demand for timing solutions that are not GNSS dependent. The next generation miniature atomic clock arising from this project fulfills this need and will find widespread application in precision timing for mobile base stations, network servers for financial services, data centres, national power distribution networks and air traffic control systems. Further applications arise in areas where an independent timing reference is needed on mobile platforms and especially in areas where no GNSS signal is available. A high performance compact clock would benefit a range of useful capabilities, addressing civil and military applications, bringing both technical and economic gains for the UK.

SECT-AIR’s aims are to develop strategies for the UK high integrity software industry to significantly lower development costs and to scope a UK aerospace software centre-of excellence to maintain these strategies in the future. SECT-AIR plans to define processes and technologies that will make a step change reduction to software development costs; gain adoption of these through certification authorities and wider industry engagement and to ensure a better flow of technology between academia and industry in these areas in the future.

Current socio-economic pressures on the global civil aerospace industry are increasing the utilisation of titanium in aero-structures. Production of parts by existing methods leads to inefficient buy-to-fly ratios (as high as 20:1), which is becoming increasingly uneconomical (high material cost & labour intensive; leading to high repeat costs, long lead times & design constraints) and driving the need for structures to be fabricated by near-net-shape welding processes. Laser welding is emerging as the process of choice since it can produce low distortion welds of good quality and properties at significantly faster speeds than other welding processes. The OLIVER project will further develop knowledge in laser welding titanium and its application to structural aerospace assemblies, and at the same time exploit this knowledge by developing UK manufacturing capability both within the UK supply chain and OEMs. Project OLIVER includes 2 OEM case studies which represent first- to-market opportunities for the technologies to be developed. A further case study is included which will demonstrate the capability of laser welding a strut component in a revolutionary titanium-composite.

The collaborative project between Selex ES and Frontier Agriculture will test the feasibility of developing new technology for predicting wheat yield using a wide range of data including; remotely sensed information describing the crop and soil. The project is highly innovative as it seeks to produce the first commercially viable yield prediction service that not only predicts yield, but also to identify the key factors expected to limit yields. New applications for remote sensing technologies will be developed and innovative techniques for integrating a wide range of data types will be employed. The ultimate goal of this initiative is to produce a decision support tool that enables more efficient operating practices for a wide range of clients within the wheat industry.

Based upon a real-world regional scenario in Scotland, CONSERVE will build and demonstrate an innovative integrated approach to urban resilience planning, event management, environmental management and critical infrastructure protection. This will improve quality of life for citizens in that a coordinated response to flooding events will minimise harm to both citizens and critical infrastructure. An understanding of systemic risk is emerging in some cities, but solutions are in their infancy. Existing city dashboards allow visualisation of city authority activity, but without interlinked workflow and information sharing between public and private. CONSERVE would create a first-of-its-kind service as a model for other cities to build on. It will detail how the multi-stakeholder challenges of flood event response can be addressed through data virtualisation and open city datasets, multi-agency workflow, and state-of-the-art analytics.The commercial procurement models supporting these initiatives will also be considered

Selex ES are proposing an antenna concept that employs novel microstrip printed element technology to obtain multi-frequency, GNSS operation from a single, composite output, low profile patch-ring antenna. The fundamental design is a quad-band circular patch antenna with parasitic concentric ring resonator and an innovative coupled line feed structure. This technology uses established printed circuit fabrication techniques and can therefore be easily manufactured, at low cost, to suit a wide range of applications where size and weight is a key parameter, for example, the dismounted soldier or small vehicle deployment. A critical design feature for this concept is performance stability and reliability of the antenna when deployed on the platform itself in a typically harsh military environment. The principle of this antenna element design is modular and scalable making it applicable to a variety of applications, including use within controlled radiation pattern arrays (CRPAs) as used in anti-jam networks.

To develop and embed an enhanced capability in computer-vision based decision-making systems and utilise it in commercial applications.

Integrated Antenna Solutions, Selex ES are proposing an antenna concept that uses novel microstrip technology to obtain multi frequency, GNSS operation from a single output, low profile patch antenna. The fundamental design is a quad-band circular patch antenna that has 3 parasitic concentric rings. This technology uses established printed circuit fabrication techniques and the proposed solution can therefore be easily manufactured, and at low cost, to suit a wide range of applications where size and weight is a key parameter, for example, the dismounted soldier or small vehicle. By applying a modular "unit cell" approach the antenna is scalable accoriding to the application and installed platform. The key drivers for all these designs are optimum performance of the antenna on the platform itself, minimisation of the number of antenna elements required in the system, modularity, low through life costs and low Size, Weight and Power (SWaP). Rapid on-site prototyping provides fast insight into the physical solution once the initial concept analysis and simulation stages have been passed. Our design and measurement facilities include a secure, large, outdoor antenna test range with a turntable and workshop. Selex ES also possesses advanced platform analysis tools using large, secure computing resources and advanced computer analysis for 3D electromagnetic simulation. Assured supply of antennas is achieved with a large, UK based, List-X antenna manufacturing capability; Selex ES have designed and manufactured over 40,000 antennas. This includes over 90% of all the UK (and Italian) military vehicle and manpack ECM antennas, conformal antennas for fast jets, body-worn antennas for the Defence , Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) and other government departments (OGDs), conformal antennas for international Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs), covert vehicle antennas and Control Radiation Pattern Antennas (CRPA) for a large defence prime.

The objective of this 2.5 yr long project is to demonstrate the clear competitive advantages of the use of Additive Layer Manufacturing (sometimes known as 3D Printing) in the manufacture of production metal and polyamide components. The project will demonstrate that ALM is now a reliable and potent production technology which can be included in the gamut of standard manufacturing techniques. This will be done by addressing three key issues, those of ALM component error correction, the automatic finishing of ALM components to acceptable standards, and the generation of ALM Production Part Acceptance Procedures for the industries involved, as well as process control plans and design guides for parts. The project will be led by CRDM Ltd, with McLaren Automotive, Delcam, Selex, Ultra Electronics and Flitetec as its partners. This strong consortium will ensure that the validated ALM techniques will be robust, exploitable and disseminated widely.

capability in the identification, feasibility testing and technology road map development of compact airborne radar systems for civil science applications

HiPerTilt led by AgustaWestland with the University of Liverpool and Bristol will develop world leading aerodynamic models, processes, techniques and new designs/products integral to the design and development of next generation tilt-rotorcraft in the UK. Tilt-rotorcraft offer the potential to revolutionise vertical lift passenger transport by delivering higher speeds, freeing up existing airport ‘regional aircraft’ capacity. These advances will deliver a game changing reduction in design time, an order of magnitude improvement within the UK.

This project will develop innovative large format array packaging technology for near infra-red imaging sensors. This project will support sensor arrays for the next generation of large telescopes and it will be a crucial enabler of the sensor technology that will investigate events early in the evolution of the universe.

The proposed feasibility study will deliver prototypes of slimline current sensors suitable for retrofitting on all feeder cables in substations, which will then be tested using our in house facilities. The resulting prototype sensor will fit all substations, as a result of a very slimline profile, while uniquely retaining the accuracy and durability of larger and more expensive sensors. The solution will be retrofitable with minimal expense and disruption to the network operator and will offer a permanent, cost effective and highly accurate monitoring of 100% of feeder cables providing opportunities for efficiency savings and better network management.

The project will create knowledge management solutions in which live data from a range of sensors can create improved component life predictions. These can in turn be integrated into asset management processes in the construction, aerospace and other sectors. It will support the move from planned preventative maintenance to condition-based servicing, leading to improved efficiency and effectiveness, less failure in service and enhanced asset value. In construction the focus will be on M&E equipment in a hospital plant room and other facilities where these benefits can be realised. The project builds on a previous TSB-funded project which has developed innovative 'senztags' - integrated RFID-enabled devices incorporating tags and sensors, with energy harvesting capabilities, and data capture/handling middleware. This enables long term capture of component life-related data in aerospace and construction environments. The sensor capabilities of Senztags can be selected and adapted for the varying needs of specific applications.

The well publicised global shortage of 3He has enforced a search for alternative neutron detector technologies across industries spanning nuclear power generation, oil & gas exploration, homeland security, medical imaging and Physics research Clustered 10B-lined proportional counters are gaining credibility as an alternative detector in the security sector and show potential for use in fuel cycle facilities. Key attributes include a sensitivity of >70% compared to a 3atm 3He tube.The TenBee collaboration has been formed using funding from the UK Technology Strategy Board’s recent Nuclear R&D feasibility studies competition. The aim of the collaboration is to understand the potential for using 10B-lined detector clusters to meet the need of the UK civil nuclear industry for neutron assay applications envisaging a future without 3He. The project ran for one year from November 2010 and delivered demonstrator technology and a feasibility report. A key element to ensure that the work was relevant to the real needs of the UK nuclear industry was to ensure that we captured the requirements and views of as many industry participants as possible.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Awaiting Public Summary