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 armored vehicles.

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

The world’s leading armored 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) program (photo), 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 stabilized 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 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,” said 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,” he added.

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

Built on a flexible architecture to match customer specifications and budgets for any vehicle application, the Barco-Thales LSA system is a turnkey solution for Driver Vision Enhancement and LSA systems. It will include multiple camera clusters and sensors, video distribution, as well as display solutions for commander, gunner, crew station and driver positions. Advanced processing capabilities are available to deliver additional functionality such as assisted target detection.

The joint solution was demonstrated at DSEI exhibition last week (10-13 September; London).