QinetiQ and Army partnership to assure safety of body armour

The bespoke rapid radiography capability, acquired by QinetiQ for the British Army, will be operated by QinetiQ’s staff at its Fort Halstead site in Kent, providing a solution 15 times quicker than current methods.

As part of the £2.2m contract, QinetiQ will be responsible for training the AI software to assess the structural integrity of the armour. The results are then categorised within seconds and assessed independently by the expert operators.

Will Blamey, Chief Executive, UK Defence, QinetiQ, said: “The rapid radiography capability will provide a new level of confidence about the safety of vital protective equipment and ensure it is available to those who need it quicker than ever before.

"We are proud to work in partnership with the British Army on an innovative sovereign UK capability with a wide-range of potential use cases, utilising the latest technology to work more efficiently and effectively for our service personnel.”

The armour is fed into the machine where high-quality digital images are captured along a conveyor belt system which are then assessed by the integrated Automatic Defect Recognition software to look for cracks. The system will also assess the armour’s mass and thickness to ensure compliance with standards.

The radiography equipment will be in use after a period of AI training is complete.