BAE Systems looks to the future for ground warfare

A series of presentations from potential suppliers, academics and even schools has helped BAE Systems to identify 47 technologies which could be applied to land-based military vehicles to improve their effectiveness and the safety of the troops they carry. Some of these technologies — whose origin includes systems used in aerospace — could increase fuel efficiency to 60 percent, the company claims.

The company set out to find new ideas for its Future Protected Vehicles (FPV) programme by hosting ‘Dragon’s Den’-type panels which looked at 567 technologies and 244 vehicle concepts, which had to fit only two criteria — the vehicle could weigh no more than 30tonnes, and had to carry an equivalent ‘punch’ to a Challenger 2 tank, the army’s current Main Battle Tank.

The FPV team, headed by Hisham Awad, has incorporated the best of the ideas into seven concept vehicles to show how future technology might shape land systems. While some of the concepts are earmarked for ‘far-future’ development, such as eCamouflage to project an image of what is behind the vehicle onto the front and rendering it far harder to detect, others are suitable for immediate deployment. ‘These technologies are ready for urgent operational requirement (UOR), and can be retrofitted into vehicles currently in the field,’ Awad said.