World Defense Show 2026: Northrop Grumman to present improved C2 management system
The Northrop Grumman Integrated Battle Command System is in service with Poland and the US Army with another 20 countries believed to have expressed an interest.
The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) in the UK has awarded contracts worth a total of £1.3 million ($1.7 million), for Phase 1 in the Map the Gap programme to develop semi-autonomous reconnaissance and survey systems.
Map the Gap is run on behalf of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). It sought ideas from industry and academia to create a new remote system capable of surveying potential water crossing sites.
Five SMEs obtained funding to fast-track their solutions and test them with the British Army.
Scytronix (£251,900) proposes a drone-mountable crossing assessment system that uses novel low-frequency electromagnetic scanning techniques.
Wight Ocean (£309,282) is developing an amphibious bottom crawler to navigate and transit water crossing to gather near real-time data for analysis.
Nordic Unmanned (£272,656) will demonstrate UAS sensors and data exploitation, plus a semi-autonomous capability for engineer reconnaissance.
Digital Concepts Engineering (£331,133) is developing a teamed UGV/UAV solution with a variety of sensors to gather, aggregate and present data.
Foundry Cube (£177,789) is working with Ultrabeam Hydrographic to demonstrate a pedalo-style autonomous and amphibious hydrographic survey vehicle, using sonar, lidar and other techniques such as laser light and measuring reflection.
Col Simon Bradley, Assistant Head Manoeuvre Support, Ground Manoeuvre Capability British Army, said: ‘Replacing and/or augmenting manned reconnaissance with a remote, beyond line-of-sight system will not only reduce the threat to life; it will also offer the ability to survey multiple crossing sites in a far more timely and efficient manner.’
Map the Gap Phase 2 is expected to include an additional £2.5 million in funding.
As part of our promise to deliver comprehensive coverage to our Defence Insight and Premium News subscribers, our curated defence news content provides the latest industry updates, contract awards and programme milestones.
The Northrop Grumman Integrated Battle Command System is in service with Poland and the US Army with another 20 countries believed to have expressed an interest.
The Thales DigitalCrew package, first unveiled at last year’s Defence IQ International Armoured Vehicles conference, is designed to merge imaging and apply a layer of decision-making and observation algorithms to support crew and other personnel.
Nomad can provide militaries with real-time intelligence, saving critical time on the battlefield.
Taurus operates alongside the Israel Defense Forces’ Orion system which supports mission management across tens of thousands of manoeuvring forces, from squad leaders to battalion commanders.
The plan for the new displays follows fresh investment in Kopin’s European facilities by Theon and an order for head-up displays in fielded aircraft, with funding from the US Department of Defense.
Persistent Systems received its largest ever single order for its MPU5 devices and other systems earlier this month and has already delivered the 50 units to the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division.