• • • DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY • • •


HOW CONTINUOUS VALIDATION CAN REDUCE BOTTLENECKS IN DEFENCE PROGRAMMES


BY SIMON FIELDING, CADENCE DESIGN SYSTEMS D


efence engineering has never stood still. New technologies, evolving threats and increasingly demanding mission


requirements are constant pressures that engineers must outrun, building more capable systems to meet emerging needs. The world’s recent experience in active warzones


has shown that the cycle time between a new adversarial threat emerging, and the imperative to develop and scale an effective defence solution, has shrunk from years to months, and in some cases a matter of weeks. As such, we are soon to see a step change in


investment in A&D technologies here in the UK. The Burnham government is set to lift its defence spending to the NATO target of 3.5 per cent by 2035; just last month, the government announced investment of over £700m in ‘the next generation of air combat technology’ for the UK armed forces. These figures reflect the complexity and


interconnected nature of software, electronics and physical systems within modern defence platforms. Ensuring that these systems perform safely and reliably is an intensive, expensive endeavour; validation is a fundamental part of it. For many organisations, however, validation


processes have not evolved at the same pace as the systems themselves. Physical testing remains a fundamental part of


the validation process, but it’s difficult to manage. Creating prototypes is expensive, time-consuming and often only begins in the latter stages of development. Defence engineers are typically only getting ‘hands on’ after significant investment in the theory of a design. The test and evaluation (T&E) methods used for validating the design will typically leverage a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) prototype which has costly limitations. When issues are uncovered this late in the process, the consequences can be significant.


Designers and manufacturers may have to walk back design decisions, repeat expensive or time-consuming testing and find ways to absorb delays that can ripple across an entire programme. Massive cost and challenges to delivery timescales are both likely. As defence platforms become more complex,


validation increasingly becomes one of the primary constraints on programme delivery.


From late-stage testing to


continuous validation This is prompting an important shift in how validation must be approached. Rather than concentrating validation towards


the end of development by performing T&E on physical prototypes, engineering teams are increasingly incorporating modelling, simulation and virtual verification and validation (V&V) methods throughout the design process. Instead of waiting for a completed platform to expose unexpected interactions, teams can test and evaluate performance throughout development, while changes remain faster, less costly and less disruptive to implement. Digital engineering is fundamental to this shift,


opening opportunities to verify and validate a system long before physical prototypes exist. High-fidelity models and simulation environments allow engineers to investigate how components and subsystems behave individually and together, building confidence progressively as a design evolves. Potential issues can then be explored while design choices remain flexible, reducing the likelihood of expensive redesigns later in the programme. Simulation also broadens the scope of


validation. Virtual environments make it possible to explore thousands of scenarios, edge cases and operating conditions that would be difficult or impossible to reproduce in the real world. The result is a deeper understanding of how increasingly complex systems are likely to behave before they ever leave the drawing board. For defence organisations, validation does not end here. Programmes might remain in


28 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • JULY/AUGUST 2026


development or service for decades, during which time requirements evolve, technologies mature and components become unavailable. Maintaining confidence in a platform, therefore, depends on understanding how each change affects the wider system. Digital twins help provide that continuity. By


creating a virtual representation that can be validated before its physical counterpart is even manufactured, engineers can assess the impact of design changes on both hardware and software elements of the system. This can go as far as to identify upgrades and replacement sub-systems or components before they are even introduced. Digital twins support a more continuous understanding of system performance throughout the programme lifecycle.


Building confidence across


the programme lifecycle Validation has always been an essential part of defence engineering. What is changing is where, when and how confidence in a design is built. In an environment where adaptation is


increasingly unavoidable, the ability to validate changes quickly can become as valuable as validating the original design itself. As systems become more interconnected and programme lifecycles continue to lengthen, organisations will increasingly depend on digital engineering, simulation and digital twins to understand system behaviour long before hardware reaches the test range, and long after it enters service. Physical testing in the field will remain


indispensable, but it will be increasingly used to confirm decisions already informed by continuous digital validation, rather than to uncover problems that could have been addressed much earlier in the engineering process. Earlier, continuous validation gives engineering teams greater confidence to assess design changes as programmes progress, helping them respond more effectively to changing requirements, evolving technologies and supply chain disruption.


www.cadence.com electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk


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