A multi-million pound contract has been awarded to QinetiQ that will enable the first Synthetic Environment (SE) based acquisition ever conducted by the UK's Ministry of Defence. QinetiQ, teamed with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Ltd, will act as the Synthetic Environment Integrator (SEI) for the Ground Based Air Defence (GBAD) Integrated Project Team (IPT) following the award of the three and a half year contract.
GBAD will integrate the existing HVM and Rapier weapon systems within an overarching air defence command, control, communication, computing and intelligence (ADC4I) system. Two teams are competing to deliver this ADC4I system, namely Team Athena, a consortium of companies led by Lockheed Martin, and Team Caracal, comprising the partnership of EADS and MBDA.
The QinetiQ SEI team will design, develop and deliver a synthetic environment that includes a range of future battlefield scenarios in which the two competing ADC4I solutions will be assessed. Data captured from the SE will feed into the more traditional Operational Analysis (OA) and allow the GBAD IPT to make the best informed decision in choosing their preferred option.
Commenting on the award of the contract, Chris Ottewell, GBAD IPT Programme and System Architect said: "By using Synthetic Environments in this way the GBAD team has adopted a truly innovative approach to UK defence acquisition. The contract was awarded after a lengthy and hard fought competition. We were particularly impressed by the quality of QinetiQ's proposal to support the GBAD programme both in its immediate phase and throughout its life."
Commenting on QinetiQ's appointment as the GBAD SEI, Gary Summons, QinetiQ Bid Manager said: "We are delighted to have been awarded this important contract. Through QinetiQ's relationship with SAIC we are able to offer the best of breed in UK and US Synthetic Environment components, technologies, processes, experience and personnel. We look forward to working with the GBAD IPT and fully exploiting this unparalleled expertise."
As GBAD SEI, QinetiQ will manage a complex group of stakeholders. These include the competing ADC4I developers, the existing weapon system design authorities, the Shared Data Environment supplier, Dstl and various MoD customers. This process will result in an agreed SE, fit for independent experimentation at QinetiQ's Malvern site and further integration with live trials at the QinetiQ Hebrides range.
QinetiQ's SE expertise and domain knowledge has already seen the company involved in a range of key defence programmes in the UK and the US. QinetiQ is part of the EDS consortium providing the MoD's ISTAR Test Bed and was a founding partner of the NITEworks programme alongside the MoD and BAE Systems. SAIC is the industry leader in the development of Semi-Automated Forces (SAF), including OneSAF Testbed (OTB), and is the lead system integrator team-mate for the US Army's Joint Virtual Battlespace (JVB) Future Combat System (FCS).
QinetiQ was awarded a three year Project Office Support (POS) contract by the GBAD IPT in 2003. This includes a wide range of tasks including expert technical advice on the candidate ADC4I systems, test and evaluation planning, information and data fusion, equipment engineering support, operational analysis, modelling and simulation.
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