A consortium led by QinetiQ has won a contract funded by the UK Government’s Guided Weapons Tower of Excellence initiative. Lasting three years, this £2 M programme will concentrate on the development of new concepts for terminal missile guidance and seeker technologies — the final target acquisition stage — for guided weapons.
The company will be providing the overall project management plus bidding into specific studies. Other consortium members comprise MBDA, Roke Manor Research, RMCS Cranfield, SELEX (formerly part of BAE Systems) and Thales (Basingstoke). The programme will see up to eight new ‘high risk’ enabling studies, selected every six months. Each fundamental idea will be explored by a team of experts and a report produced and presented for consideration. Any of these that show promise will then receive stage two funding to enable further, more detailed research to be initiated.