Public Funding for Sts Defence Limited

"Nuclear plants are valuable, high capital costs assets with longer operating lifetimes delivering reliable base electricity load to the grid. It is recognised by nuclear operators, national regulatory bodies, and organisations such as the IAEA, that in order to maintain optimal safety and economic viability, application of advanced Surveillance, Diagnostics and Prognostic (SDP) technologies will be required, particularly as plant lifetimes extend to 80 years and beyond. STS Nuclear in conjunction with TWI Ltd will develop a high temperature, high pressure test rig to complete leak propagation experiments and utilise previously developed sensing techniques to develop AI algorithms providing a material healthiness score in real time representative conditions. The aim of development is to produce a technology to inform operators about potential leak sites, and ultimately provide the characterisation of these sites including, location, size, rate of leak and time at risk, informing safety systems and operations. CLAIMS++ (Coolant Leak Artificially Intelligent Monitoring System) is a development of a TRL3 technology focused on detecting, localising and classifying small leaks in the Reactor Coolant Pressure Boundary of pressurised water rectors (PWRs). This is timely for the market, given the increased recognition that intelligent monitoring systems can add significant benefits to reactor plants, being high-value, long term ROI assets for their operators and investors."

To develop a communications unit with 2 key features; the ability to intelligently compress the data to reduce its size whilst preserving its value, as well as the ability to choose the best method of transmitting the data (e.g. satellite, WIFI, 2/3/4g) in terms of cost, application and urgency.

Stickyworld and STS Nuclear are collaborating to test the technical and commercial feasibility of media rich communications for engaging staff and supply chain in smarter knowledge sharing around the decommissioning process. Exploring a combination of immersive photography and video providing visual context to data sharing, the team aim to demonstrate the potential for reducing cost in on boarding new staff and teams, and de risking knowledge from the industry by providing and easy way to share technical know how about complex environments, machines and processes. Traditional methods of project engagement use various communication forms meaning that data is lost, often introducing risks to the project. Stakeholders are also specialists in their area, with reduced knowledge of other specialist skills. This platform will help them break down the barriers to other specialist to ensure everyone is on the same wavelength, and everyone involved is well consulted.

Corrosion in pipelines costs the Oil & Gas sector millions of pounds in clean-up, maintenance and litigation. Guided Wave systems are used to conduct long range inspections of pipelines to detect corrosion remotely, particularly in inaccessible areas. There is a requirement from the industry to monitor the health of pipeline infrastructure and a trend towards ascertaining holistic coverage whilst increasing the probability of detection. In order to achieve this, a new generation of Guided Wave monitoring systems needs to be created. Previous generations of Guided Wave systems are inspection orientated, with the need for service engineers making scheduled inspections and manually assessing the data. This collaborative R&D project aims to develop a modularised Guided Wave monitoring sub assembly part containing on-board power and communications, which could be synchronised to produce a distributed monitoring network. This would provide more frequent information regarding the health of the infrastructure and flag up incipient corrosion and the appropriate locations for further targeted labour-intensive inspection.

Project IConIC (Intelligent Condition monitoring with Integrated Communications) will develop a revolutionary system that provides accurate prediction for vessel performance and operation. It represents a step-change in the marine industry, through linking autonomous measurement systems to existing maritime satellite communications. The performance of marine engines used for propulsion and power generation has a significant impact on efficient vessel operation. Inefficient/failed engines on large vessels can cost their owners £millions. In response to this, STS Defence, a Gosport based SME, has gathered together a strong consortium of companies and academic partners to develop an automated 'machine to machine' and ship-to-shore data exchange capability, increasingly described as the 'internet of things'.

Project CLAIMS (Coolant Leak Artificially Intelligent Monitoring System) will provide a technology demonstrator, of advanced automated condition monitoring system for detection and classification of leaks from the primary circuits of designs of light water reactors. Nuclear plants are valuable, high capital cost assets with long operating lifetimes delivering reliable base electricity load to the grid. It is recognised that in order to maintain optimal safety and economic viability, application of advanced Surveillance, Diagnostic and Prognostic technologies will be required, particularly as plant lifetimes extend to 80 years and beyond.

Project FiRST (Fire-fighter Rescue and Support Technology) will produce a pre-production prototype of a novel Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) concept, that provides a stepchange in fire-fighter situational awareness when tackling fires in a range of environments, but particularly those challenges represented by fighting fires indoors. Fire-fighters tackling indoor blazes face exceptional hazards; from direct heat/hot gases produced from burning materials, structural instability, through to severely impaired situational awareness due to poor visibility, noise, and the difficulties Incident Commanders have in knowing the location and status of their teams inside larger structures. These particular circumstances have combined in past incidents, together with sudden and catastrophic rises in temperatures, to directly lead to fire-fighter fatalities. STS Defence is employing its extensive expertise to develop a prototype system to support front line Fire & Rescue Services. It is non-invasive, integrated onto existing breathing apparatus sets, and provides increased awareness of the fire-fighter to his/her surrounds. A robust radio-frequency communications link back to the Incident Commander provides the data and therefore the means of identifying the status of the teams, and their location in GPSdenied indoor locations.

To develop and embed a capability for statistical pattern recognition and indoor location estimation techniques to provide improved threat assessment and early warning systems for personnel in hazardous search and rescue environments.

STS Defence are a Gosport-based SME, providing contract manufacturing & through-life system engineering services; engaging with our customers through experience, expertise and a commitment to quality.STS Defence had a turnover of £12.1m in 2012.We focus on working in partnership with customers developing initial concepts into reality, leveraging over 40 years’ experience of working on Ministry of Defence projects to develop an impressive portfolio of through-life capabilities that are essential to our clients.Our offer is based on flexibility, agility and quality, with a breadth of design-led manufacturing services for electronic and electro-mechanical assembly from prototyping & procurement to fabrication, finishing and test while our through-life systems engineering services range from design & integration to installation & logistic support.

To develop an intelligent commercial data collection system for in-transit condition monitoring for the transportation of high value equipment. To develop novel hardware and original embedded software based on Associate 1's algorithms to produce a licensable, commercially viable in-transit condition monitoring device(s).