Front End | News SSDL delivers 130th FLOPPYFlash drive to SEA for Type 23 upgrade S
olid State Disks Limited (SSDL) has announced that Systems Engineering & Assessment Ltd (SEA) has taken delivery of its 130th FLOPPYFlash drive, required to upgrade the Outfit DLH decoy launch systems fitted to the UK Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigates. The Outfit DLH system entered service more than 20 years ago and its primary function is to protect naval vessels from incoming missile and torpedo threats by deploying countermeasures including chaff, infrared flares and other expendable decoys. Contracted by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), SEA is the prime integrator responsible for upgrading the Outfit DLH system, where the upgrade is driven by obsolescence management and capability sustainment issues.
“Our FLOPPYFlash drive is integral to the upgrade,” commented James Hilken, sales director of SSDL, “and has been used in a variety of other military applications where long-obsolete electromechanical floppy disk drives are starting to fail.”
Launched in 2016 and using industrial- grade Compact Flash (CF) as the storage media, FLOPPYFlash is a programmable drive that can be used as a drop-in replacement for 3.5-, 5.25- and 8-inch drives – both soft and hard sectored – and can be set to operate at various data rates. SEA placed its first order for the Outfit DLH upgrade programme in 2018 and the drives are being built to order, with 2020 seeing a peak of 35 units. SEA is benefiting from SSDL’s ability to supply FLOPPYFlash as if it were an off-the-shelf part, with the most
recent unit delivered identical to the first. Hilken concluded: “This delivery milestone reflects the strong collaboration between SEA and Solid State Disks, and we take immense pride in the fact that our
FLOPPYFlash technology is playing a part in the modernisation of the Royal Navy’s fleet of Type 23 frigates.”
www.solidstatedisks.com Nanoscale temperature and force sensors ready for mass deployment D
igid’s patented printed electronics fabrication technology has been fully qualified for volume production of temperature and force sensors as small as 1µm long. Digid sensors are believed to be the world’s smallest – and are set to become even smaller: Digid’s technology roadmap forecasts future production of sensors that are just 10nm long.
This nanoscale sensing technology is said to provide the key that will unlock the potential of multiple emerging markets, including physical AI and humanoid robots. In robotics, Moravec’s paradox has persisted in part because robot hands lack the
billions of nerve endings on a human finger. Digid offers the opportunity for machines to mimic human sensory capabilities: its nanoscale printed sensors can be applied to surfaces such as a robot’s shell in arrays of up to 16 x 16 sensors. Other applications for Digid sensors include force sensing on the blade of a scalpel in robotic surgical equipment; temperature sensing on the tip of a temperature probe used in minimally invasive surgery; temperature sensors embedded inside battery cells for safety and performance monitoring; and biosensors for detecting biological objects such as viruses or the chemical markers of drugs in the bloodstream. Dr Konstantin Kloppstech, chief
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