1. newsWinter 2015
#38
www.sea.co.uk
SEA’s Submarine
Communications System
is Standing by to Surface
SEA is expanding DECKsim supports
the Royal Navy
Dismounted
Soldier Systems
From tactical bases
to future cities

2. SEA’s Submarine Communications System is Standing by to Surface
SEA’s Common External Communications System (cECS), was recently adopted as the future communications
system architecture across the UK submarine fleet. Following this success SEA has been invited in a
competitive tender to submit their proposal for replacing the aging systems on the surface fleet.
engineering for success
02 |
SEA has been looking at how the modern communications
architecture for the RN submarines could be applied to a surface fleet,
giving a state of the art, modular, flexible, open system, enabling ships
to communicate with each other, their home base and with partners
in coalition forces for the next 25 years and beyond.
Using the Royal Navy as an example we see much more demanding
communication requirements. The Royal Navy (RN) surface fleet
is adapting to deal with the significantly more complex defence
environment it operates in. The increased use of internet, mobile
phone and cyber space to manage and conduct warfare means that
the next generation of communications system must give the RN the
very best capability now, and be able to evolve rapidly, to ensure RN
platforms maintain their position as an internationally respected Navy.
The Royal Navy is often relied upon to provide support during
natural and man-made disasters around the world. A recent
example is the Ebola outbreak in West Africa where RN ships
have been deployed to establish a complete medical support
infrastructure in an area where little or no communications exist.
Command and control needs to be rapidly established to ensure
the very best use of all the resources deployed on the ground to
help bring the outbreak under control. Sophisticated and robust
communications are therefore essential.
©Crown Copyright
©CrownCopyright

3. www.sea.co.uk | 03
SEA’s submarine communications are based around an open,
modular and highly secure architecture with advanced remote control
that ensures all existing communications equipment can continue
to be used, at the same time new equipment can be introduced to
enhance the capability and provide a fully networked system.
Previously this was a long and costly process but with the cECS
system, new equipment can be integrated with significantly lower
costs and in a matter of days or weeks.
cECS will deliver the capability, performance and cost
benefits which are both strategically important and desirable
characteristics of the future surface communications capability.
SEA has spent over three years investigating the challenges and
requirements of a solution that could provide communications
systems to both the submarine and surface environment. SEA’s
research showed that the underpinning technical requirements
were nearly identical. The differences lie in the methods of use.
Namely a submarine is quiet most of the time with brief periods
of intense traffic. When a surface ship is operating the activity is
nearly continuous and across multiple communications bearers
with many simultaneous users interacting.
To prove that these challenges can be met by SEA’s architecture
we have built a full scale integration and demonstration laboratory.
The challenge we gave our engineers was to prove that major war
vessel environments are well within capability both in terms of
simultaneous channels and concurrent voice circuits.
The result was spectacularly good with the system performance
characteristics showing no decline in performance as the system
was heavily loaded, the under pinning architecture supports
multiple grouped voice calls with ease.
The transition to the next generation of communications cannot
interrupt business as usual for any customer and SEA have
recently joined up with J+S Ltd from Barnstable who bring an
advanced manufacturing capability and a surface ship support
infrastructure that will ensure a rapid and uninterrupted installation
program and complete, through life support.
SEA are confident that bringing its communications system to
the surface will pay off, not just in terms of better capability
but also to help reduce the cost of delivering an advanced
communications system.
SEA has investigated the challenges and
requirements of a solution that could
provide communications systems to both
the submarine and surface environment.
©Crown Copyright

4. 04 |
SEA wins £23m contract
to enhance submarine
communications
SEA has been selected to deliver advanced
external communications technology for the
UK’s submarine fleet.
SEA’s innovative External Communications System (ECS) is
currently on the Royal Navy’s Astute Boat 3 and will now
be rolled out across the fleet.
SEA’s common ECS provides an open, flexible and
networked communication system which marks a significant
advancement in submarine communications. Where
previously communications typically relied upon complex
end-to-end circuit technology, ECS is designed on an open,
modular, and highly secure architecture with advanced remote
control capabilities. This ensures the system can be easily and
rapidly evolved and enhanced as new technologies emerge -
making it cost-efficient without compromising performance.
The introduction of the common ECS sets the stage for a
planned revolution in submarine communication over the
coming years - enabling submarines to take on new tasks
in Anti Air Warfare, network-enabled precision strikes and
Anti Surface Warfare.
Steve Hill, managing director at SEA, said: “SEA is delighted
to have been chosen by prime contractor BAE Systems to
deliver this system. It is the culmination of fifteen years hard
work, often in close partnership with the Royal Navy. Our
appointment demonstrates that the MoD policy to support
procurement from small innovative companies is paying
off – bringing enhanced capabilities and reducing the cost of
delivering an advanced and highly capable Navy.”
SEA is expanding!
J+S Limited an independent systems and in-service support provider for the defence and
offshore energy markets, joins the Cohort plc as part of SEA.
J+S will provide SEA with new capabilities in defence and
offshore energy. Defence products include sonar systems,
torpedo launchers and a range of other naval equipment for the
Royal Navy and other customers globally.
These defence capabilities and products - notably its sonar array
products, well-established manufacturing capability and long-term
customer support relationships - are highly complementary to
those of SEA. The full integration of J+S within SEA will enhance
market offerings as well as providing cost savings and benefits
from shared access to markets and technologies.
The established production capability of J+S will support SEA’s
growing need for submarine communication and other system
manufacture capability.
SEA’s expertise in certain technology
areas offers the potential for enhancing
product offerings and will extend SEA’s
reach internationally - building on the strong foothold J+S has in
Canada, Malaysia and the wider Asia Pacific region. It also brings a
growing capability in adjacent markets including offshore energy.
Andrew Thomis, Chief Executive Officer of Cohort, said: “By
integrating J+S into SEA, we aim to accelerate the growth of
the combined business by enhancing its product and service
offerings and broadening its international reach. The transaction
will consolidate SEA’s position as a leading international provider
of naval defence technology.
engineering for success
©Crown Copyright

5. www.sea.co.uk | 05
Military Training & Education Delivery – Decision Support
Simulation of Replenishment at Sea Manoeuvres to Assess Operational Capability.
In response to the requirement to enable the transfer of solids to
the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) Aircraft Carriers, a simulation
of Replenishment at Sea (RAS) operations has been developed by
SEA for the UK Ministry of Defence. This work supports enhanced
UK RAS capability and the NATO International RAS Project
Arrangement. Any ship can be modelled within the simulation
framework and approach, station keeping, and breakaway
manoeuvres can all be configured.
The SEA-developed modular simulation includes ship dynamics,
lead and following helms with automated propeller and rudder
control, full ship hydrodynamics including isolated hull forces
and interaction effects, an environment model, and a choice
of visualisation modules. A transfer module is also available to
simulate the transfer of solid loads between ships.
Solids transfer to the Carriers is required from existing Royal Fleet
Auxiliary ships, specifically the Auxiliary Oiler and Replenishment
(AOR) and the Fort Class solid support ships. SEA conducted a
range of simulation studies to assess the performance of these
two ship types during approach, station keeping and breakaway
manoeuvres when alongside the QEC. The results have been used
to assess the capability of the two ships to replenish the Carrier in
varying sea conditions, to quantify performance during operations,
and to assess whether operational guidance can be produced using
the simulation results.
DECKsim supports the biggest and most powerful warships ever
constructed for the Royal Navy.
SEA’s new Aviation Command Team Trainer is providing a deck operation simulation solution for the newly
formed Airspace Management Organisation (AMO) for the new HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier.
DECKsim will allow Royal Navy personnel to realistically
simulate and experiment with concurrent operations
by multiple airframes and aircraft types in real-time.
Simulations can be used for mission rehearsal and provide
vital operational data and rehearsal time to the AMO via
a research task run by DSTL. The SEAvis toolset that
underpins the DECKsim product range rapidly generates
high fidelity visualisations of the new carrier and its
surrounding airspace. The Aviation Command Team Trainer
includes the ATC radar display, a 2D interactive deck plan,
the marine environment, and 3D models including the
Merlin helicopter, the Joint Strike Fighter and the Queen
Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carrier.
“This provided a valuable demonstration to our users, those
within the Queen Elizabeth Carrier currently developing
their SOPs and the Maritime Warfare Centre, developing
CS doctrine; but also as a valuable opportunity to initiate
and develop discussions with stakeholders as DOTC(M)
develops.” Commander Peter Le Gassick,
SEA offers a range of DECKsim products and an overview of these and more can be found at: www.sea-procedural-training.co.uk

6. Dismounted Soldier Systems
SEA continues to lead the way in research for the
dismounted soldier through its Dismounted Soldier Systems
lethality research for Dstl and Capability Directorate Combat’s
Delivering Dismounted Effect (DDE) programme.
Now in its third year, the programme has delivered some key
developments including Weapon As A Platform (WAAP), Digital Optical
Weapon Sight (DOWS) and Targeting Support System (TSS). These
concepts have now been successfully trailled at Warminster by the Infantry
Trials and Development Unit.
SEA is now the Industry Technical Partner to Dstl for the Dismounted
Soldier Systems (DSS) Engine Room. The Engine Room is focused on
bringing coherence and integration to the DSS programme and SEA
is providing specific technical experience, knowledge and expertise
in areas such as Capability Road Mapping, Soldier Systems Architecture,
Generic Systems Architecture, and Human Factors.
SEA has produced the ‘Future Soldier Vision’ pulling together the
dstl and industrial S&T knowledge base to identify what the future
dismounted soldier may look like in ten years’ time, enabling the
Capability Directorate Combat to plan future soldier capability
requirements. The vision provides the Dismounted
Close Combat research community
with a contextual platform in which to
present future soldier-
based research themes
to wider stakeholders.
The physical mannequin
places the soldier at the centre
of the research space - acting as a
pragmatic and realistic mechanism to
demonstrate what can be achieved by
maturing research and ‘commercial off
the shelf’ technologies.
engineering for success
06 |

7. SEA to lead £4m MoD research programme
SEA will deliver a research programme that will focus on future training
and experimentation environments. The Architectures; Interoperability and
Management of Simulations (AIMS) programme forms one of the three
technical columns of the Synthetic Environments Tower of Excellence
(SE Tower).
The objective of the programme is
to develop, evaluate and enable the
exploitation of advanced Live, Virtual and
Constructive simulation architectures,
interoperability and management
techniques. This will aid integration
between land, sea and air operations, and
support greater interoperability between
NATO and other coalition partners.
SEA will be supported by its partners BAE
Systems, Thales UK and QinetiQ, augmented
by industry and academia specialists
from across the SE Tower. The research
programme is being commissioned as part of
MOD’s efforts to achieve efficiency savings,
particularly in the area of military training.
www.sea.co.uk | 07
From Tactical Bases to Future Cities
Recent operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have seen Tactical
Bases develop into large and sophisticated installations providing a range
of support for deployed forces.
As part of its continuing involvement in Defence Logistics research, SEA and project
partner DIEM Consulting have delivered a detailed analysis of the complex factors
affecting Tactical Bases used in military land operations.
SEA and DIEM implemented a systems engineering approach to the problem - describing
the key operational nodes and activities of the Tactical Base in order to provide the framework
necessary to undertake Causal Mapping and System Dynamics modelling. This enabled
the complex relationships to be understood and the potential benefits of incorporating new
technology to be quantified.
The results of this work and its application to emerging cities were reported in the recent
Institution of Engineering and Technology Infrastructure Risk and Resilience Special
Interest Publication “Managing Complexity and Uncertainty in Developing Cities”.
The techniques used in the analysis and knowledge are now available to the wider
community dealing with the need to increase resilience for the world’s growing cities.
Latest ROADflow
news
ROADflow permit system goes
live in the West Country
First Welsh ROADflow
system delivered after Welsh
enforcement powers are
granted
Planning for ROADflow
heatmap vehicle trials in
Denmark commences
Banned turn detection system
successfully trailled on a live
junction in Bristol
Six successful user groups
held in 2014, please get in
contact if you would like to
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next user group
ROAD.flow@sea.co.uk

8. Welcome to the Cohort plc
Cohort has acquired Marlborough Communications Limited (“MCL”) MCL will join
Cohort’s existing subsidiaries, MASS, SCS and SEA as the fourth member of the Group.
Systems Engineering Assessment Ltd
Beckington Castle, 17 Castle Corner
Beckington, Nr Frome, Somerset BA11 6TA
Telephone: +44 1373 852 000 Fax: +44 1373 831 133
Email: info@sea.co.uk
www.sea.co.uk
For more information
scan the qr code
with your smartphone
Jeans for
Genes day
The staff at SEA ditched the
business attire for jeans to raise
funds for Genetic Disorders UK,
the charity that aims to transform
the lives of children with genetic
disorders.
The 3 Peaks challenge
Our team completed the 3 peaks challenge in
23 hours and 28 minutes. They suffered some
painful injuries and range of weather from
sunshine to snow. Huge congratulations to
them for rising to this challenge and raising a
staggering £6,935 for a great cause. The team
also received the ‘Fundraiser of the month’
award from the RNRMC.
a Cohort plc company
MCL provides the Group with capability to offer fully integrated electronic warfare, communications and
intelligence solutions to the UK Ministry of Defence and other customers.
MCL is a specialist supplier of electronic warfare, communications and surveillance technology to UK and overseas customers,
with over 30 years’ experience in supporting the UK’s Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance (ISTAR)
programmes. It is headquartered in Surrey and has 26 employees engaged in sourcing, supplying and supporting advanced
technology equipment.
Andrew Thomis, Chief Executive Officer of Cohort, said: “The acquisition of MCL is an important step forward for Cohort.
Our objective is to accelerate growth by augmenting our current offering and enhancing the breadth of solutions we provide.
We believe that MCL has great potential and a clear and sustainable competitive advantage, and we are excited about the
opportunities that the business can generate as part of Cohort.“
Contains public sector information licensed
under the Open Government Licence v3.0.