Following 12 gruelling months of preparation, team Stellar triumphed at the MoD Grand Challenge and won the RJ Mitchell Trophy for Innovation. Battling ten other systems, the
team's system - SATURN - proved to be the unanimous winner in
this high profile competition. Navigating the urban military environment, the autonomous vehicles identified a range of threats
to take the overall trophy.
The collaborative group of TRW Conekt, Stellar Research Services, Blue Bear Systems Research, Cranfield University, Marshall SDG and Selex Galilieo made up the winning Stellar team, developing two UAVs (unmanned air vehicles) and the cross terrain UGV (unmanned ground vehicle). Using various communication systems such as Domo and Selex CISP, the system known as SATURN (Sensing
and Autonomous Tactical Urban Reconnaissance Network) was
able to relay vital information to the control unit allowing maximum points to be earned.
TRW Conekt provided the advanced route guidance and radar threat sensor for the UGV combining its skills from the automotive, defence and aerospace Industries. Many of these skills used in this challenge have been acquired while developing 'cognitive' safety products for parent company TRW Automotive. The advanced route guidance allows autonomous route detection and vehicle manoeuvrability which has many other potential applications within industry. Further developments to this capability are being seen in the automotive sector to increase vehicle safety. TRW Conekt is at the forefront of this work.
The SATURN system employs optical, thermal and radar sensors in order to identify and classify a range of threats from complex urban environments. The threat sensing capability was able to support the identification of the defined military threats in the competition. Using automotive adaptive cruise control technology the radar threat sensor relays detailed information to a ground control station to corroborate the threats.
“The competition was great and finale day was a tense time,” commented Alan Jacobs-Cook, manager electronic systems, TRW Conekt. “The combination of skills across all team member disciplines proved vital to our success. We are ecstatic with the result and look forward to developing both route guidance and threat detection systems further. The system was able to successfully identify a significant number of threats autonomously. The efforts we've
made underpin TRW Conekt's capabilities in route sensing and
threat detection.”
Following on from this event, the MoD will evaluate the systems and the suitability of the technology to be transferred into similar military operations on the front line.
