In fiscal 2019, the company had a workforce of more than 10,000 employees and posted consolidated sales of more than EUR4.6 billion euros.

This will be carried out largely through individual agreements such as the increased use of partial retirement, early retirement and other arrangements. The target figure will also be reached through measures that have already been initiated, such as an extensive hiring freeze or waiver to fill vacant positions, as well as a reduction in working hours.

"As a result of the pandemic, the aviation industry will remain under pressure for some time to come. It will be years before air traffic -- which is the foundation on which our activities in series production and our maintenance business rest -- returns to pre-crisis levels," said CEO Reiner Winkler. "We have no interest in compulsory redundancies or social plans, and will coordinate our approach very carefully with the works council. We want to keep as many of our highly qualified colleagues on board as possible during and after the crisis. We will continue to offer our partners and customers the high level of quality and service they have come to expect."

MTU is currently taking advantage of the temporary capacity adjustment options available through short-time working at its German locations. Various measures to reduce capacity are being implemented at the international locations, where different legal frameworks apply.

Source:  www.mtu.de/

Trade-off between traditional navigation and situational awareness

Traditional navigation compromises situational awareness because it requires soldiers to take their focus away from their surroundings to check screens or maps, or listen to audio instructions. The Mission Navigation Belt solves this problem by conveying navigation cues through haptic feedback and the underutilized sense of touch. This way, it frees up soldiers’ hands, eyes and ears to concentrate on their surroundings.

The MNB was developed by haptic feedback specialists Elitac Wearables in close collaboration with the Netherlands Ministry of Defense. Major Van Veen, of the Royal Netherlands Army Defence Centre of Expertise for Soldier and Equipment, explained: "Modern soldiers have access to incredible, hi-tech navigation systems, but these all require soldiers to keep checking their screens constantly. This makes an already dangerous job even more dangerous because it reduces situational awareness."

Solving the trade-off

The Mission Navigation Belt was developed to address this problem: "It has proved its value convincingly during field tests: Soldiers reported that they were more aware of their surroundings and found the navigational cues very intuitive. And because it plugs into our own soldier system, there is no learning curve or need for an additional battery. We look forward to implementing this order of belts and investigating other possible applications of the MNB.", Major Van Veen said. The MNB can be used to navigate on foot and in vehicles both on land and water: Soldiers can change seamlessly from one mode of transportation to another without stopping to navigate.

Successful collaboration

Merijn Klarenbeek, CEO and co-founder of Elitac Wearables said "After multiple years of joint testing and development with the Netherlands Ministry of Defense, we delivered the first order of the finished product today. The Mission Navigation Belt is fully compatible and interoperable with the VOSS system (the improved operational soldier system developed for the Netherlands Ministry of Defense). Its design really pushes the boundaries when it comes to integrating electronics and textiles, as the belt had to be robust, comfortable, and, most importantly, reliable. The field tests conducted by the Royal Netherlands Army demonstrate that we have indeed achieved that. It is rewarding to think that our wearables will help keep soldiers safer".

Source:  Elitac Wearables
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With a standoff range of 32-km, SPIKE NLOS is the longest range variant of the SPIKE Family, featuring all-weather performance, enabling the weapon to effectively prosecute enemy tank formations. One SPIKE NLOS battery can cover very large operational areas, creating a significant tactical footprint. SPIKE NLOS is a 5th Generation ATGM, which includes a highly advanced electro-optical guidance unit, enabling passive target engagement (no laser emission, radar signals or GPS-dependence). The unique combination of standoff and EO guidance allows a SPIKE NLOS unit to launch stealth salvo attacks, engaging multiple armored targets simultaneously, breaking the enemy's momentum.

The system is capable of engaging line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight targets, with a choice of engagement modes using digital targeting data provided over standard secure military networks, fully interoperable with NATO.

To meet a key requirement of the Tank Destroyer program in Poland, the standoff weapon of choice must be able to cope with any type of terrain, including urban, as normally invading formations will use urban areas for quick supply. SPIKE NLOS, with its real-time data link and high quality EO seeker, facilitates engagement in urban terrain with pinpoint accuracy that is hard to obtain with laser-guided or radar-guided missiles, thereby minimizing the potential of collateral damage and allows significantly better discrimination among targets as friend, foe or uninvolved.

Another major differentiator of the EO guidance is the ability to discriminate real-time high value targets (as the missile approaches the target area) such as enemy command & control assets, air-defense launchers and others, whose removal from the operational area dramatically affects the opponent.

The SPIKE NLOS missile is in service with numerous armed forces around the world, including several NATO members, and has been fired thousands of times in combat, from armored platforms, light Special Forces (SF) vehicles, maritime platforms, as well as from attack helicopters. The SPIKE NLOS is slated to compete in the future "KRUK" Program of the new Polish Attack Helicopter.

The new SPIKE NLOS launcher is based on a stand-alone multi-purpose launcher that can be integrated onto any current or future Polish platform as the Polish BWP-1, the KTO ROSOMAK or the Future Borsuk IFV. An important feature of the SPIKE NLOS launcher is the compatibility to other SPIKE Family members in service in the Poland Armed Forces SPIKE LR or SPIKE LR2 allowing the unit to utilize the thousands existing in-stock SPIKE rounds from the same launching system.

The successful use of the SPIKE LR by the Polish Defence Forces and the fact that this missile is produced in Poland by MESKO, a PGZ company, lays the infrastructure for the future Polish production of the SPIKE NLOS missile as well the launchers.

As part of its general vision and particularly now at this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a dramatic effect on all industries and economies, RAFAEL is continuously working to leverage industrial cooperation by contributing and operating with local industries, sharing its knowledge and expertise, in order to implement advanced technologies in the industry and in the Polish Armed Forces, to maintain its edge in today's modern battlefield.

Source:  Rafael Advanced Defense Systems
Associated URL: Click here to visit