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vehicle that need to be properly integrated with the military electronics and all of this is part of creating situational awareness,” said Professor Stipidis. “Today’s soldiers are able to deploy from their transport with a much fuller picture of their environment and of the threats they are facing. Standardisation has helped to build an effective fighting vehicle that meets the needs of the user, and which has been procured and built as efficiently as possible.”

Bringing together academic thinking and practical relationships with government departments and manufacturers can be a complex task. Professor Stipidis is currently leading the academic input within a group of 14 countries working towards a NATO Generic Vehicle Architecture that will create a coherent approach for military vehicle electronics procurement.

“As academics we can help people understand and talk to each other,” said Professor Stipidis. “For example, a General may decide what she or he needs in terms of future technology, but she or he may not have a full awareness of technological capabilities and, more importantly, constraints. We create coherent conversations and we have an independent voice, aside from the end-user and manufacturer. This consistency of approach helps to build better understanding and systems that ultimately help to protect and save lives.”

of Brighton’s Vetronics Research Centre (VRC), the UK’s only academic centre of excellence in military vehicle electronics. “Making things less complex means that projects can come together more quickly and effectively, in particular, when new threats dictate for Urgent Operational Requirements. For example, Defence Aids Suites (DAS) help soldiers see and understand threats in time to avoid or address them, and today’s systems can make an auto-response even before the user has made an input. Being able to adapt a DAS system to a vehicle and address new threats fast can have enormous lifesaving impact with less financial burden.”

Standardisation is a fundamental approach of the centre’s role, working closely with the Ministry of Defence (MoD), NATO-related organisations and other allied nations including Germany, Sweden and France. Standardisation is important at the sharp end, helping to maximise combat effectiveness, but it is also centrally important in procurement, both from the buyer’s and the seller’s perspectives. “If a contractor is developing a bespoke product for the MoD it ends up being very expensive,” said Professor Stipidis, “but standardisation means that, with some small modifications, the product can be sold to our allies. Open standards mean bigger markets, better capabilities, and cost savings for manufacturers and customers.”

A recent example of a standardised vehicle is the Foxhound, a replacement for the Land Rover Snatch, to transport troops in potentially hostile environments, used most recently in Afghanistan. “There are electronics in the base

Twenty-five years ago, NATO armies had a huge variety of vehicles from different manufacturers in their inventories. Today’s high-tech fighting vehicles have adopted a standardised approach to technology, making them safer and more effective, and academics at the University of Brighton are at the heart of leading this integrated and standardised approach.

Today’s vehicles are more complex and more dependent on electronics than ever before. From family hatchbacks to armoured personnel carriers, vehicles rely on a whole host of systems working together effectively to get us from A to B.

Military vehicles have one big difference, however. A car maker manufactures or buys all the various components it needs to create a vehicle, but for military vehicles different sub-systems are built by a range of manufacturers and brought together by a prime contractor to develop and maintain through the lifecycle over three decades. Today, each sub-system includes sophisticated electronics, and ensuring these are properly integrated and standardised is a critical task.

“People who design new military vehicles and their systems often reinvent the wheel,” said Professor Elias Stipidis who leads the University

Life, Health and Physical Sciences

Safeguarding lives in fighting vehicles

Photograph: The ‘Buggy’ a mobile demonstrator platform for vehicle electronics.