The "Politics and DV Technology" working group analyses and comments on current political developments in the defence sector from a technological perspective.
Recently, the working group compiled questions and comments on the Minister of Defence's paper "Future Vision Submarine Service". These comments were presented to, among others, the members of the Permanent Committee on Defence of the House of Representatives to support their consideration of these issues.
The working group welcomes the technological challenges of a new submarine project. Besides making an important contribution to the security interest, this could also give a powerful boost to the technology sector in the Netherlands. Spin-off to the technology sector and the rest of society could be pursued with greater emphasis.That is also an interest of this project for the Netherlands.
Download the paper and comments via this link.
Comment1 by the Working Group on Politics and DV Engineering on the paper "Future Vision Submarine Service" dated 11 June 2015
Introduction
In considering this vision of the future, the Royal Institute of Engineers (KIVI) befits some modesty. After all, the primary concern is the importance of the submarine service for Dutch security and that of allies. The KIVI working group does not comment on this importance. The working group's comments only concern elements of technology and related aspects.
Page 1. Importance for the Netherlands
The security interest served by submarines is obviously at the top of the list. However, a replacement plan like this also offers excellent opportunities for spin-off of technology, knowledge, products and advanced work to the Dutch economy. A number of other Defence policies are relevant for this, such as the Defence Industry Strategy (DIS) and the Operational Energy Strategy.
Stronger than indicated on page 7 (industrial participation - within the project), this plan offers leads for (technological) spin-off to other sectors of the economy: the maritime sector, energy sector (batteries), manufacturing industry, big-data and artificial intelligence, etc. Of course, this technical/economic interest of spin-off should not prevail over the safety interest or the interest of the replacement project.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has developed a "technology transfer" programme for this purpose and ASML, too, pays attention to reuse of technological developments with its programme "Quartets with patents".
This leads to the following questions:
- In the DMP-A and subsequent documents, can the minister explicitly indicate the possibilities for and limitations of spin-off of technology to be developed under the replacement plan to other sectors of the economy?
- Can "technology transfer" to other markets be made a theme for government-commissioned technology? For example, through MINEZ/CMP.
Page 5 Safety and adaptability
The working group welcomes the emphasis in building a new submarine on building in flexibility with a view to modifications, modular adaptation to accommodate future manning and functionality requirements. Besides the need-related aspects indicated, this is of great importance because technological developments will be much faster in the coming decades than before. Adaptations will be needed regularly.
Moreover, modular construction has demonstrably led to better export opportunities in other ship classes.
This leads to the following questions:
- Flexibility and modularity are likely to make life cycle costing estimates (even) more inaccurate. Is this objectionable?
- Does Defence already reserve room in the long-term budget in advance for future adjustments?
Page 7. Industrial participation
Knowledge building and development of new technology is not only important for submarine construction, but also has an important spin-off to the rest of the economy. Technology developed for submarines can be applied and exported in other defence systems. However, it also flows out to other sectors of the economy, sometimes in simplified or modified form. This is sometimes called dual-use.
The working group welcomes the focus on the priority technology areas of the Defence Industry Strategy. This is where our engineers are good and can make the difference in making technology available both within the Defence and Security Industry (DVI) and beyond. Obviously within limits of safety.
This leads to the following questions:
- Can the industry indicate what spin-off (dual use and export) is anticipated or pursued?
- Is it possible to develop the technology in such a way that maximum possibilities for using the technology for other applications are already included in the design, possibly by other companies?
Page 9. International cooperation
It seems that operational cooperation does not go hand-in-hand with equipment cooperation. Especially technical cooperation with countries pursuing the same operational concept (Australia and Canada) could promote interoperability and mutual cooperation. Are there opportunities to intensify informal R&D cooperation with those countries into cooperation in (sub)system development and construction?
Page 10. International cooperation partners
The list of cooperation partners is dominated by R&D activities. As far as the working group is aware, this is mainly research work. However, cooperation in the construction of new submarines should go a step further. The paper recognises that development of advanced (sub)systems is of great importance to meet the military/technological requirements of 2030 and beyond.
Are there any plans for more in-depth cooperation with countries or industries on the development and production of (sub)systems?
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Politics and DV Engineering Working Group, 26 February 2016
Do you have any further questions? If so, please contact the working group at E: dv@kivi.nl or T: 071 7113973
Note 1: The questions and comments refer to the relevant pages in the paper "Future Vision Submarine Service".
