Eliminated by his own fire?

When:

13 October 2008

18:15 Hour - 22:00 Hour

Event organizer:Defence and Security

Description

Military personnel are regularly disabled by their own fire, so-called "fratricide" or "friendly fire" incidents. This includes incidents where neutral entities are affected, so-called "collateral damage". Although fratricide is of all times, in this age of technology and tactical networking, there is a growing belief in defence that this phenomenon can be reduced or even completely banished to the past.

During this theme night, Combat Identification (CID) will take centre stage. CID is the process of identifying the target before fire is released. It is a broad concept that includes getting good "Situational Awareness", i.e. a good idea of the world around the fighter. Furthermore, it consists of recognising the intended target as friendly, enemy or neutral (such as civilians). The focus of the evening is mainly on recognising own forces on the ground, both from the air (fighter aircraft and helicopters) and by other ground units such as tank crews, infantrymen and the like.

To date, CID in the air-to-air application has been most advanced with the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) technology, which allows to inquire at a great distance what the identity of the unknown other aircraft is. For entities on the ground, to date, visual identifiers have been used mainly, and for the past 20 years or so, panels that can be seen in other frequencies, such as Infrared, have been added for vehicles.

There are currently many new developments that should improve Combat Identification of ground units. These include IFF-like systems for ground objects, where it should be clear through interrogations what the friendly vehicles are. In addition, work is under way to do the best possible information dissemination through tactical networks both on the ground and in the air to improve combatant Situational Awareness.

All these techniques depend on the cooperation of the possible target to disseminate the information directly or indirectly. With broad coalitions, this is often a tricky one, and with identification of neutral entities will be of little help. The latest developments are therefore also aimed at using laser and radar, and better sensors and data processing to do as much identification as possible based on the properties of the target. Similar to visual recognition, but at greater distances and in other frequency bands

18:15 - 19:00
Reception with a light bread meal.

19:00 - 21:30
Speakers from Defence, the National Aerospace Laboratory, TNO and Thales-UK (in English) will give an insight into their experiences and the challenges faced now and in the future, focusing in particular on the recent international exercise/experiment Bold Quest.

21:30 - 22:00
Closing drinks

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
PLEASE NOTE!
The Malieveld car park closes at 21:30 on Monday.
Alternative parking is the Pleingarage, about 500 metres' walk from the KIVI NIRIA building. See the link at the bottom of this page.
The car park near Central Station is closed due to renovations.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------