Web Page sponsor Oxley Developments
www.oxleygroup.com
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03 Jan 12. Lockheed Martin UK has completed the installation of its Warship Electronic Chart Display and Information System (WECDIS) on board HMS Protector, the Royal Navy’s new Antarctic ice patrol vessel. Following installation, HMS Protector conducted and passed her WECDIS digital accreditation process, enabling her to undertake Antarctic patrol operational commitments with the Royal Navy. This is the first time Lockheed Martin UK has fitted an Antarctic ice patrol vessel with this new advanced hardware and software system. WECDIS provides ships’ navigation teams with an integrated electronic navigation picture, greatly reducing navigator workload and increasing situational and tactical awareness for the ship’s crew. The additional value of electronic charting systems in polar circles is that they remain fully functional in such regions, allowing Royal Navy ships and submarines to safely navigate in the high latitudes of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Lockheed Martin has fitted more than 90 ships and submarines from the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary with WECDIS hardware and software, enabling ships’ navigation teams to replace paper charts. The WECDIS-equipped fleet now includes surface ships from small patrol craft to aircraft carriers and submarines such as the Trafalgar and Vanguard Class.
04 Jan 12. High-performance thin film boost for electronics research
MANA researchers have developed the world’s highest performance thin-film capacitors using a new high-permittivity (high-k) dielectric sheet with molecular-level thickness (~1 nm). This technology may revolutionize the next-generation electronics. The announcement of this breakthrough comes from a research group led by MANA Scientist Dr. Minoru Osada and Principal Investigator Dr. Takayoshi Sasaki of the International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) at the National Institute for Material Science (NIMS) in Japan. Good insulating, high-k nanofilms are expected to be key to future applications as predicted by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). Minoru Osada and colleagues created thin films based on titanium-niobate nanosheets (TiNbO5, Ti2NbO7, Ti5NbO14) as building blocks. The research group delaminated layered oxides and stacked sheets on an atomically flat SrRuO3 substrate, creating films between 5 and 15 nm thick. The thin-film capacitors developed by this method have excellent dielectric characteristics, achieving the world’s highest performance permittivity (160 ~ 300) with a film thickness of 5 ~ 15 nm. The researchers relate the dielectric performance of the nanofilms to the structural features. In these nanosheets, the octahedral distortion inherent to site engineering by Nb doping results in a giant molecular polarizability. New cooperative functions that originate from the mutual interactions between nanoscale structural units comprise the focus of nanoarchitectonics, the discipline at the center of MANA research. This latest research demonstrates simultaneous improvements in a number of material properties, including relative permittivity, lower loss and leakage current. The authors add, “The solution-based room-temperature process using oxide nanosheets as building blocks opens multiple possibilities for the development of high-k dielectrics in capacitor technology, gate insulators in organic field effect transistors, energy-storage devices, and also future flexible electronics.”
04 Jan 12. Thales launches GeoMux, a new PR4G F@stnet Waveform. Thales introduces GeoMux, a new VHF waveform providing simultaneously three main
services -Voice, Data and Blue Force Tracking -answering perfectly the
interoperability requirement of modern Battlefield Management Systems (BMS). GeoMux is one of the most advanced Electronic Protective Measure (EPM) VHF waveforms on