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Making History - Celebrate The 100th Hammerhead Unmanned Surface Vehicle

Meggitt Training Systems Canada and A.F. Theriault & Son are pleased to announce the production of the 100th Hammerhead Unmanned Surface Vehicle Target (USV-T), the world’s highest production volume to date of an unmanned marine surface vehicle. Please join us to celebrate this important milestone in the history of this successful Canadian developed and produced vehicle.

Date

Friday July 15 2011

Location

A.F Theriault & Son
9027 Highway 1
Meteghan River, Nova Scotia

Agenda

  • 11.00 am Networking and presentations in the Hammerhead manufacturing facility
  • 12.00 pm Lunch at Auberge Au Havre du Capitaine Inn
  • 1.30 pm Closing Remarks

To confirm attendance please RSVP to Tony Goode.

Background

A.F. Theriault & Son Ltd. in Meteghan River, and Meggitt Training Systems Canada Inc. in Alberta, partnered in 2005 to build the Hammerhead USV-T. The Hammerhead is based on a 5 m composite surface-effect hull manufactured by AF Theriault in Nova Scotia, fitted with a 3-litre inboard Mercury gas engine rated at 135 hp and capable of operating at 35 kt in Sea State 3. Payload options include MDI (miss distance indication) scoring, video telemetry, radar augmentation and muzzle flash simulation. The unmanned surface vehicle targets are used to provide training solutions for military agencies around the world. DND had been supportive of the development of the Hammerhead, but it was foreign governments that sought out the system first. Interestingly, it was inaugural export sales to the German and South African governments that helped pave the way for domestic sales. The success of last year’s record-setting Swarm-Ex demonstration further helped build the company’s reputation internationally.

ADIANS Appoints Major JoAnne Seviour As New Executive Director

Steve Elder, President Elect of the Board of the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Nova Scotia (ADIANS) is pleased to announce the appointment of Major JoAnne Seviour as the Executive Director of ADIANS, effective May 2nd, 2011. Elder says that Seviour will be pivotal in getting ADIANS to the next level. “She brings a wealth of strategic and operational planning experience and an appreciation of the unprecedented opportunities for Nova Scotia Industries who are ready and willing to provide products and services required to enable the Federal Government’s Canada First Defence Strategy”, Elder says. Ted Milner, chair of the ADIANS selection committee noted that “the competition was tough and we are quite confident that JoAnne brings a unique blend of knowledge, character, and abilities that will help member companies and government partners capitalize on exciting opportunities”. The appointment of Seviour is in part to assist Nova Scotia in understanding and evolving the promising aerospace and defence sector which every year, makes some of the strongest GDP contributions in the Province. Joanne holds a Bachelors degree from Memorial University, and a Master’s degree from Dalhousie. She has held a series of progressively senior roles in the Canadian Forces for the past 20 years most recently serving as Strategic Business Planner for the Army in Halifax. She can be contacted at joanne.seviour@adians.ca.

Deep Vision Wins Finmeccanica's Premio Innovazione Award

UAS Committee member Deep Vision has been awarded the prestigious Premio Innovazione Finmeccanica for their work on SELEX Galileo's TIGER Project. The Premio Innovaziones are awarded for brand new technologies and ideas designed to meet the emerging requirements of customers around the world and, most of all, to help and protect troops on the front lines. TIGER is a Battlespace Information Terrain Generator for enhanced situational awareness. The aim of the Innovation Prize awards is to enhance the value of research and innovation within the Finmeccanica group.

Premio Innovazione Finmeccanica - open to all Group companies - were created to promote value creation through research and development, that is fundamental to growth and competitiveness. This year, 750 proposals were submitted, from which 73 finalists were chosen. The selection of the three equal winner projects was made by a committee chaired by Professor Nick Lieven, Head of Aerospace Engineering at Bristol University (UK), and comprising professors and researchers from this University - a centre of academic excellence in the aerospace sector, with which Finmeccanica has a long history of fruitful collaboration.

One of the other three prizes went to MBDA, which has developed a Linux-based operating system able to fully utilize the capacity offered by new multi-core microprocessors, that enable calculations to be made in real time using several CPUs on a single microchip. The many potential applications of this system range from graphics simulators to navigation, radar systems and video games.

Background

While technologic innovation comes from the encounter between technology and talent, Finmeccanica, with its extraordinary variety of technologies and expertise, has exceptional potential for innovation, which is necessary to make everyone aware, involved and proud. The prize, which is one of the most important of Finmeccanica, is therefore aimed at stimulating the contribution of each person to the continuous progress, providing visibility and recognition to those who are able to offer solutions that facilitate the improvement of business performance. Over the years this goal was largely achieved, tangible and measurable results have also been achieved. The proposals made in various group companies were gradually transformed into new and effective applications, useful to develop products and processes for success.

The initiative has seen a growing participation, involving overall, in six editions held so far, over 13,000 people, for a total of approximately 4,400 innovative proposals. To a quantitative growth, a quality growth was added over the years in terms of proposals, and an increasing attention to their "protection". And these numbers testify how widespread Finmeccanica attention is to innovation and at the same time it is not only a strategic objective of the Group, but a daily reality for many people who work within it.

The winning projects spanned the breadth of SELEX Galileo’s technologies, with proposals that included new ideas in electro-optical sensors, lasers, unmanned autonomous systems, radar, systems for monitoring territory and three dimensional image generation systems.

ADIANS UAS Committee Members To Present at Unmanned Systems Canada 2010

Representatives of Composites Atlantic and Deep Vision will be presenting at the Unmanned Systems Canada Conference Tuesday 2nd - Friday 5th November in Montreal. Claude Lafrance of Composites Atlantic will give a talk on "Unmanned Vehicles and Composites" and Alan Parslow of Deep Vision will present "Loitering with Intent – Search & Destroy on the Fulmar UAS".

Come and introduce yourself - we look forward to meeting you!

ADIANS UAS Committee Members To Attend Farnborough International Airshow

Representatives of Composites Atlantic, Deep Vision, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Nova Scotia Business Inc., and IMP Aerospace will be attending the Farnborough International Airshow Monday 19th - Thursday 22nd July.

Come and introduce yourself - we welcome all enquiries and look forward to meeting you! All representatives are available, or can be contacted, at the Atlantic Alliance booth in the Canadian Pavillion (Hall 4 - Booth C19).

ADIANS UAS Committee Members Featured in Progress Magazine

Committee members Nautel, Deep Vision, and IMP Aerospace are featured in the July edition (Volume 17 No. 4) of Progress Magazine, Nova Scotia's leading business journal.

The article "A Space To Grow", can be found on page 67. Rush out and grab your copy now - a bargain at only $3.95! Alternatively, you can read the article for free in the digital edition on Progress Magazine's website.

NSCC ROV Team Finishes 12th In MATE International ROV Competition

The final results of the MATE 2010 ROV Competition are in - and the NSCC ROV team finished 12th in a strong international field of 28 competitors in the Explorer Class. If the tether hadn't broken in the first trial, they would have done even better. As it was, they beat out the likes of MIT, Dalhousie, and Moscow State University. Well played fellows!

More details can be found HERE at the team's blog.

Full results can be downloaded from the Downloads page.

NSCC ROV Team Competing In Hawai This Weekend

The MATE 2010 ROV Competition is underway with the main component, the underwater trials, scheduled for Saturday 26th June. The UAS Committee's NSCC ROV Team are competing in the Explorer class. Deep Vision, another Committee member, is sponsoring the team. This year's event promises stiff competition with 26 entrants battling for the coveted trophy, including teams from Purdue University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Moscow State Technical University, City University of Hong Kong, Bristol Community College, and the Moscow State Technical University. In qualifying for the event, the NSCC has once again put Nova Scotia on the world map. We wish the team the best of luck in the finals!

The NSCC EXPLORER class team will compete in a mission consisting of the following four distinct tasks:

  1. Resurrect HUGO - stranded submersible (100 points)
  2. Collect samples of a new species of crustacean (60 points)
  3. Sample a new vent site (80 points)
  4. Collect a sample of a bacterial mat (60 points)

Full mission details can be downloaded from the Downloads page

Ocean Innovation 2010 To Focus On Underwater Vehicles

Ocean Innovation is Canada’s premiere oceans event, attracting significant national and international interest. This yea the conference is being organized as a two day, single stream event, with a parallel exhibition. The program has been carefully designed to ensure that a variety of relevant issues related to the conference theme are discussed and debated by all participants. The speaker program is by invitation only. In this way the conference chair and program committee are able to identify and 'hand pick' top notch speakers who will address key topics around the theme of Underwater Vehicles. The single-stream design helps to encourage cross-fertilization of ideas since every delegate is encouraged to attend every talk. This minimizes the tendency found in many other technical conferences to cluster into intellectual 'ghettos'.

A concerted effort is made to involve all members of the community, including government, academia, industry and NGO's in the belief that all three have key roles to play and that it is important to give them a 'meeting place' to discuss and debate timely issues. Although not adverse to large numbers of participants, Ocean Innovation is becoming known and respected as an intimate event that consistently attracts between 250 - 300 delegates and 30 - 40 industry exhibits. Every effort is made to leave adequate time throughout the event for delegates to socialize and network.

Amongst others, this year's keynote speakers include:

Watchkeeper Makes Maiden UK Flight at Parc Aberporth

The Watchkeeper flew for the first time in the UK on 14th April, taking off from dedicated facilities at Parc Aberporth in West Wales for a 20-minute flight. The Parc Aberporth facilities, managed by QinetiQ through the West Wales UAV Centre, are the premier test facilities for UAVs in the UK.

The success of this first flight, which can be attributed to the combined efforts of the integrated Thales UK and Ministry of Defence (MoD) team, is the first milestone in a long-term programme to demonstrate that the Watchkeeper system meets the robust safety and airworthiness criteria required to fly UAVs initially on ranges and segregated airspace in the UK. The Watchkeeper system provides enhanced capability that will enable commanders to detect and track targets for many hours without the need to deploy troops into potentially sensitive or dangerous areas. The system is capable of rapid deployment and operations anywhere in the world and will support the information requirements of all three services.

Commenting on this major programme milestone, Alex Dorrian, CEO of Thales UK, says: "This is a momentous accomplishment in the Watchkeeper programme and just one of a number of flight trials scheduled over the coming months. This milestone reflects the years of hard work by Thales UK, the MoD and other parties since the contract was signed."

Looking forward to the plans for the rest of the year, Dorrian adds: "2010 is an important year for the programme as it will also see the opening of the Watchkeeper training facility based in Larkhill, and the continuation of the technical field trials at Parc Aberporth."

The significance of this event for the ADIANS UAS Committee will be discussed at the next meeting.

NSCC Technology Showcase 2010

NSCC students are finding new ways to apply technology to create solutions for business, communities and the environment. On April 22nd the students will demonstrate and discuss their work at the Dartmouth Waterfront Campus. This event provides an excellent opportunity to meet the students, their instructors, and learn how the NSCC technology programs are supporting the UAS sector. As a bonus you'll get a tour of the brand new Centre for the Built Environment!

The 2010 Tech Showcase will feature a wide range of projects and demonstrations. Projects of particular interest to the UAS community include:

  • Paintball Sentry
  • Lobster Life Extender - Find out how students used sensors to track the heart rate and temperature of a lobster to help biologists keep them living longer.
  • Driverless Car - Watch as students demonstrate their custom built, self contained battery operated vehicle.
  • Monkey See Monkey Do - Robotic arm
  • GMS Rover - Pipeline gas sniffing robot.
  • Silver Dart 4 - International award winning ROV. Take it for a test drive and meet the NSCC team.

The event is open from 10.00am - 7.00 pm. All ADIANS members are invited. For further information, please contact Peter Oster or Gordon Wilkie at NSCC.

Nautel Tour and Presentation

ADIANS members are invited to learn more about Nautel's RF products, including their broadcast transmitters, navigational transmitters and some of their new amplifier technology built specifically for difficult industrial and military environments.

Please join Peter Conlon, Nautel President and CEO, for a facility tour, presentation and refreshments on Wednesday, March 24th at 10.00 am to 11.00 am at:

Nautel Ltd
10089 Peggy's Cove Road,
Hackett's Cove,
Nova Scotia

NOTE: Please allow adequate time to travel to the facility.

Nautel's James Craig is a member of the ADIANS UAS Committee. You won't want to miss it. Register HERE for the event.