On 19 July 2012, a Demonstration and Visitor Day in Großmittel, Austria, concluded the trials of the EDA research project “Intelligent Control of Adversary Radio-Communication (ICAR)”, aiming at more sophisticated sensing and countering of Remote-Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices (RC-IED).
ICAR started under the Joint Investment Programme on Force Protection (JIP-FP), one of the flagships in the EDA portfolio. The work is driven by European forces´ most recent lessons from Crisis Management Operations, and is a true testimony that European collaboration in defence research works. The project value is around €4m, and it involves a consortium from 8 nations (France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Greece, Slovakia and Belgium), the logos of whom are at the foot of this article.
In his opening address, Michael Sieber, Assistant R&T Director at EDA, underlined that IEDs are among the most important threats in asymmetric warfare, with not only a physical, but also a high psychological impact on our forces. ICAR has explored new technologies to mitigate this threat – smarter sensing, powerful information fusion and intelligent counter-measures.
Quite a number of EDA member states´ representatives took up the invitation to take part in the project demonstration, which offered 3 scenarios: protection of patrols, of convoys and of infrastructure. The most spectacular scenario was certainly convoy protection, where the sensor platform was integrated into an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. But the robotic ground vehicle carrying the counter-measure unit also generated high interest among the audience.
Organisers of the event were able to benefit from the kind support by the Austrian Ministry of Defence (Bundesministerium für Landesverteidigung und Sport – BMLVS) and the Austrian Armed Forces already during its preparation. The Director for Research and Technology of the BMLVS, Brigadier Klemens Hofmeister, summarised his impressions of the day in his concluding remarks, rating the project a full success.
More information:
- Pictures from the event are available on Flickr.