The cutting edge of design: Inside BAE Systems' Advanced Technology Centre

This history is something the Centre's managing director James Baker feels strongly and one he feels proud to continue. He says: "I often use the term 'pride' and we have people here who are genuinely world experts in their field –be it antennae, Radar, materials or whatever. The excitement and challenge of what they can do here drives a lot of people who work here. There are people here who thrive on solving highly challenging problems." The results of this have been some of the most eye-catching ideas to have emerged in recent years. From lightweight, 'liquid armour' that harnesses the unique properties of shear thickening fluids which 'lock' together when subjected to a force to autonomous vehicles and the world-class Type 45 Frigate, many of them owe their origins and capabilities to the ATC. However, with defence budgets having been slashed both in the UK and worldwide, times are harder for the defence industry than they used to be; with R&D funding having borne the brunt of cuts. According to the ATC's technology executive Dr John Bagshaw: "Figures have radically changed. If you go back 15 years and look at the defence R&D budget was about £660m, which was worth about £1.2bn by modern standards. Now the defence R&D budget is about £350m. So you're trying to cover the same sort of degree of technology with less than a third of the funding." Says James Baker: "Defence used to be a favoured child to some extent. It doesn't feel like a favoured child at the moment. You have all the press around automotive creating jobs, but there isn't the same amount of press around retaining jobs in defence. And that's a worry, because we're losing high-quality scientists from defence and high-skill jobs from defence." Inevitably enough, this less hospitable climate has led to a change of approach by BAE Systems. This has meant adopting a philosophy of 'open innovation' that encourages collaboration with external companies in order to commercialise products and make better use of the IP created within the ATC. Says Baker: "The business model is key for us because, in my words, defence is bust. Yes, there is a budget. In the old days we'd do a bit of low TRL (Technology Readiness Level) work. So in the past, we'd be doing TRL 1,2 or 3. Now, we tend to leave that more to the University sector, while we do TRLs 4,5,6 and then work with others to get that final product. The Valley of Death has tended to apply in the past, where we've had some fantastic ideas that we've never successfully pulled through to exploitation." This approach has yielded some impressive results. One high profile example of this has been in the development of 'structural batteries'. This came about as a result of consultation with combat troops about the weight of their kit. Rucksacks can weigh up to 76kg and Baker recounts one soldier showing him that he had deliberately snapped the handle off his toothbrush just to save a couple of grams on pack weight. One of the items troops are most burdened with are batteries used to power the huge array of electrical equipment they are required to carry. Thus BAE Systems developed structural batteries to store the electrical energy within the physical structure of devices and thus help to reduce or eliminate the need for traditional batteries, which create weight and bulk, as well as the burden and cost of carrying spares. Says Baker: "It's basically a structure – be it in a vehicle or in body armour – and you make that structure hold battery charge, meaning that you can charge up the suit at night and put it on in the morning and your suit's fully charged." To develop this technology, scientists at BAE Systems merged battery chemistries into composite materials that can be moulded into complex 3D shapes and so form the structure of the device itself. It can then be plugged in when it needs recharging or utilise renewable power sources, such as solar energy. The process makes use of nickel-based battery chemistries, which are commonly used in defence technology and future developments will allow integration of Li-ion and Li-Polymer chemistries found in consumer electronic products such as mobile phones, MP3 players, laptops, tablets and portable games. Having developed the product to the extent that it could power a torch, BAE Systems took it to the MoD, which, while interested, could not afford to invest the money in developing it, but expressed an interest if a finished product could be developed. Says Baker: "In the old days, that would have been a classic 'Valley of Death' scenario. But our different business model allowed us to talk to Lola." This resulted in Lola incorporating the structural battery into its all-electric prototype racing car. The wing of the car will be able to power a lot of the onboard electronics. Says Baker: "It's a great way from our point of view to prove our technology and then spin it back into a defence platform. And all because we had the right partner with the right technology and positioned correctly." This more open development model has also brought other benefits in terms of the speed with which the project has moved on, as Baker explains: "It's still early days, but if we'd done that traditionally, it would have taken years (if it went anywhere at all). It will still probably be in the timescale of a year or more, but between June and October last year, we were able to take that from the lab to a product in place on a working prototype. They've got it up to the space of a standard car battery in that short space of time from nothing." Another example of the way BAE is collaborating to develop new projects is the Wildcat Robotic Vehicle. Originally devised as a research platform into autonomous resupply 'mules' for carrying equipment in combat zones such as Afghanistan, the Wildcat was originally developed with rallying specialist Bowler. However, Baker claims the real breakthrough came two years ago when BAE Systems decided to open the project out to others to develop ideas that improve the platform. Through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, BAE worked with Oxford University and a Professor Paul Newman, who was head of computer science. Says Baker: "We effectively gifted them in kind one of these vehicles. This meant that he and his people could then take this autonomous platform – which they could never have contemplated doing from scratch due to not having the engineering capability – and play around with different sensors on the architecture." The result, it is believed, will be faster technological advances than would have been possible otherwise. Says Baker: "We get access to [Professor Newman's] research and the ways in which that might impact defence, while he gets access to the system and the chance to exploit that in the commercial market. If he uses our background IP, then that gives us some value rather than it just sitting on the shelf doing nothing. And if they develop something that has real value for defence, then we can work with them to do that. In that instance, they get something, because it's their IP… We are effectively exposing our capability, giving it to a third party and saying 'go away and play with that'." The straitened circumstances of the defence sector has also prompted a change in the approach to designing defence platforms themselves. As an example, Baker raises the state-of-the-art Type 45 frigate, which he points out, comes with certain commercial limitations, as Baker makes clear: "The Type 45 Frigate is in my view, the most capable frigate in the world, but it's difficult to go on then and sell that to other people precisely because it's so capable and there are exports constraints and things we need to keep to ourselves." This is a model that has changed with the new Type 26 Global Combat Ships. Says Baker: "The Type 26 Frigate is a next-generation warship that we're looking at designing around that sort of open architecture that allows it to be exported. This export-inspired approach means that, if we can design a more 'generic' ship, the UK will have the fancy radar and the weapons systems that the UK wants, but we'll be able to sell it to – for instance – the Brazilians, who can then fit their radar or whatever, but it might not be as sophisticated, so you've got a platform you can sell to more than one nation or country." Naturally, this need to keep certain technologies under wraps is an obstacle to an open innovation model, but by no means insurmountable, according to Baker. He says: "We do have constraints around what we can and can't do in terms of open innovation, but opening that box does bring huge benefits. In the old days, much of what we're doing would have been top secret, money would have been thrown at it and the first you might have seen of it would have been at Farnborough in ten years' time. Now, to develop the technology behind a project, we have to be much more open because we probably wouldn't get there otherwise. Our job is to develop the technology that makes that more realistic. How you then integrate it and pull it together into a capability then becomes the 'black' bit, not the raw ingredients because otherwise you'd never get there in today's environment. It's a very different philosophy. Stopping power Referred to as 'custard' body armour (greatly to the chagrin of its developer, apparently), BAE's 'liquid armour' uses a counterintuitive liquid which hardens when struck has been developed by BAE Systems as part of a project to create future body armour offering soldiers greater ballistics protection and ease of movement in combat situations. The technology harnesses the unique properties of shear thickening fluids which 'lock' together when subjected to a force to enhance the existing energy absorbing properties of material structures like Kevlar. Ceramic based armour plates used in current body armour systems to cover large areas of the torso are heavy and bulky, restricting movement and contributing to fatigue, particularly in harsh environments like Afghanistan. Liquid armour has been designed to address a requirement for materials which can offers troops increased protection with reduced mass, wider area cover, greater manoeuvrability and easy integration with other systems. The technology can be integrated into standard Kevlar body armour to offer superior, freedom of motion and a reduction in overall thickness of up 45 per cent. Stewart Penney, Head of Business Development for Design and Materials Technologies at BAE Systems, said: "The technology is best explained by the example of stirring water with a spoon. In water you feel little resistance to the spoon. Whereas with 'liquid armour', you would feel significant resistance as the elements in the fluid lock together. The faster you stir, the harder it gets, so when a projectile impacts the material at speed, it hardens very quickly and absorbs the impact energy." When integrated with Kevlar, the reduced flow of the fluids in the liquid armour restricts the motion of the fabric yarns in relation to each other, resulting in an increase in area over which the impact energy is dispersed. As a result, the material is also far less likely to distort than standard body armour, which generally bends inwards when a bullet strikes, preventing death, but causing considerable pain.