Sep 11, 2013 ASDNews Source : Thales Group

Visualization experts Barco and the optronics business of Thales UK, a leader in military vehicle sensor systems, are pooling their expertise and experience in digital video electronic architectures to provide turnkey Local Situational Awareness (LSA) solutions for armoured vehicles.

The new partnership creates a scalable, innovative approach to LSA systems that will enable armoured vehicle manufacturers, integrators and operators to cut costs, reduce risk and save time compared to when integrating solutions separately.

The world’s leading armoured vehicle manufacturers and system integrators choose Thales and Barco for their LSA systems. Barco supplies rugged displays, computers and networked visualization systems while Thales provides market-leading military weapon aiming and surveillance systems, advanced processing and sensors technology. All are selected for their innovative features and high-quality imagery, as well as their compliance to the latest vehicle architecture standards for land army applications.

The British Army’s Specialist Vehicle (Scout SV) programme, for example, employs a Barco’s gunner and commander crew stations, triple-head driver’s displays, and ultra-low latency video processing unit, together with Thales weapons sighting and LSA sensor system, including stabilised digital gunnery and panoramic sights, daylight, low-light and thermal imaging camera clusters.  All LSA system elements comply with the UK MoD’s latest Defence Standard 23-09 for Generic Vehicle Architectures.

“We both have ample expertise and experience in developing digital video electronic architectures for defence applications, each with our own area of technical expertise. This has led to multiple common references around the world,” confirms Steven Luys, Vice-President Strategic Marketing Defense & Aerospace at Barco.  “Barco and Thales share a common passion for innovation and a sense of customer focus. We are both global market leaders, so it is logical to join forces and bundle our products into an all-in-one, ready-integrated LSA solution, instead of delivering each system independently.”

“By working closely together, we can help our customers save the costs, time and risk normally associated with large development programmes,” said Marion Broughton, Vice President of Land and Air Systems at Thales UK. “We are confident that our new partnership and the joint solutions it enables will be a bid-winning formula for success that will be very positively received in the industry.”