Systems Engineering for Autonomous Systems (SEAS) Defence Technology Centre (DTC)
SYSTEMS ENGINEERING FOR AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY CENTRE
home introduction organisation & management participants research programme events communication & contacts links

research programme

Scope

The SEAS DTC's research must :

Develop novel technology-based system solutions to the understanding and advancement of uninhabited military vehicles. This includes adaptive management and control whether air, land or sea in the context of information sensing, processing and networking (but excludes the full network itself).
Provide a clear military benefit
Stay within a speculative / basic research boundary to investigate the key science and technology issues that have high MoD priority

The SEAS DTC's research must not:

Stray into design and production issues

The research must address whole-system issues (hence the system engineering thrust) such as :

affordable architectures : whole life, including upgradability issues

autonomous and human assisted mission-based decision making
certification (in particular for safety-related issues)
validation and verification

The research must also consider major sub-systems such as :

propulsion

electrical power generation and management
sensors subsystem (but not the sensors themselves)
motion / position guidance and control
on-board information collection and analysis
decision-making within the sub-systems
links and interfaces to external information networks (but not the external networks themselves)

The research should :

underpin and complement (but not replace) MoD's other work on uninhabited combat vehicles
not seek to duplicate but ideally should complement MoD's applied research and other activities which might involve the use or assessment of uninhabited data gathering vehicles e.g. NITEWorks and JUEP
not seek to duplicate the work of other DTCs, but ideally work with them for maximum gearing benefit

 

scope >>
challenges >>
organisation >>
areas of interest >>
selection process >>
proposing DTC research >>
exploitation >>
© SEAS DTC 2009
links to MoD DTC homepage