A German-developed fuze that senses voids and counts layers is being evaluated for the US Air Force Boeing Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile and US Navy Raytheon Tomahawk cruise missiles, to penetrate hardened and deeply buried bunkers. The programmable fuze, produced by TDW, is one of the new fiscal year 2006 projects under the US Department of Defense’s foreign comparative testing programme.
Other projects include evaluation of a “smart bomb” umbilical connector for the 1760 weapon databus developed by the UK’s EDO MBM Technology; air flotation platforms developed by Finland’s Solving to reposition aircraft during maintenance; and the high-throughput Extended-1553 avionics databus developed by Canada’s Edgewater Computer Systems.
The latter is being evaluated for the USAF Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber’s extremely high-frequency satellite communications system (Flight International, 25 April–1 May).
The USAF is also evaluating a Northrop technology that will allow existing voice radios to handle Internet Protocol messages and imagery; and highly conductive paint and lightning strike protection using nickel nanostrands, being developed by Utah-based Metal Matrix Composites.
Source: Flight International
