11 Jun 10. SELEX Galileo has signed a teaming agreement with Universal Engineering Company Ltd (Charlestown) to be the exclusive supplier and integrator of mission and sensor systems for the Company’s Ranger series of vehicles. The agreement means that SELEX Galileo’s Mission Systems architecture and Indirect Vision System (IVS) technology will be the default choice when bidding Ranger into armoured vehicle programmes, with the two companies working together on marketing and tenders. SELEX Galileo will integrate a range of critical systems onto the Ranger, further boosting the vehicle’s already very high crew protection capabilities. These include the Company’s local situational awareness system, remote weapon station and driver’s night vision system. Together, the systems provide a 24 hour situational awareness capability for the crews with the ability to respond to threats while remaining under armour. For each specific vehicle programme, SELEX Galileo will also integrate third party and GFE mission equipment as necessary to meet the individual customer requirements. The technology load is an expanded version of the Indirect Vision System (IVS) which SELEX Galileo has already installed on the British Army’s Ridgeback and Mastiff Vehicles, technology that is now battle proven on current operations. The system provides 360 degree visibility and can be easily reconfigured for different missions using the Company’s “plug and play” modular camera interface.
09 Jun 10. Merlin Equipment and Tactronics Group are pleased to announce an alliance enabling the development of the worlds most comprehensive & fully integrated, multi-platform, vehicle power management / C4ISR solution. Building on experiences of working with common end-user customers, the two companies are creating an incredibly powerful end to end solution incorporating all the features of their existing systems and then overlaying the huge additional benefits of combining them. Merlin Equipment is a fast growing UK based company focused on developing imbedded, battery power management solutions. With massively increased electrical demands being placed on military vehicles, it’s now essential that 12V/24V DC electricity is managed efficiently on-board. Merlin’s programmable and generic systems add intelligence to charging circuits, allowing them to deliver power where and when it’s needed, avoiding electrical shortages (a safety risk) and preventing battery failures (hugely costly). Tactronics is the premier mobile C4ISR systems provider. Their rugged, waterproof, scalable, modular and upgradeable field proven electronic solutions are currently in operation with US Special Operations Forces, the US Army and Navy and the UK, Danish and Australian Special Forces. Tactronics TacSine systems incorporate computers and sunlight readable displays, secure wireless networking, real-time geo-referencing, multi bearer Blue Force tracking and integrated RF Voice/Data communications management.David Small, Director at Merlin in the UK explains the benefits of the alliance. “While Merlin controls where power goes, how it’s stored on the vehicle and how the storage medium (batteries) are protected, we also develop a lot of really useful information for the vehicle crew”. “For example, battery state of charge for specific battery banks, state of health, time remaining (for silent watch) and the status of the entire battery management system”. “Feed back from users however was that they didn’t necessarily want a ‘power monitoring panel’ to display this information if they already had a C4ISR system on-board with its own sunlight readable display”. “In these instances, our work with Tactronics will allow us to communicate this information for the user through the existing C4ISR display infrastructure”. “Over and above that, there’s an awful lot that can be achieved by using Tactronics intelligent Power Distribution Modules (‘iPDM’, which are Mil-Std 461F & 810G compliant), to control i