About BAE Systems

BAE Systems provides some of the world’s most advanced, technology-led defence, aerospace and security solutions. It employs a skilled workforce of more than 93,000 people in around 40 countries. Working with customers and local partners, BAE Systems develops, engineers, manufactures, and supports products and systems to deliver military
capability, protect national security, and keep critical information and infrastructure secure.

BAE Systems and Made Smarter Innovation Sustainability Accelerator

James Leadbetter, Team Leader, Tech Delivery – Manufacturing, said:
“Sustainability is fundamental to our business performance and the delivery of our sustainability agenda is how we address our material Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) risks and opportunities. We have set ourselves the target of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our operations by 2030 and we are working towards a
net zero value chain by 2050. We are working collaboratively with a number of our partners and academia to work towards our goal. The Made Smarter Innovation Sustainability Accelerator project with The Digital Catapult is one of many projects we are undertaking in order to develop cutting-edge technologies to reduce our emissions while developing state of the art manufacturing technologies here at our Factory of the Future facility in Warton, where this project is based.”

Challenge – Factory of the Future – Environment control system

Challenge background:

The Factory of the Future is part of BAE Systems’ FalconWorks business – a new centre for advanced and agile research and development within BAE Systems’ Air sector. It is aimed at creating a blueprint intelligent Industry 4.0 manufacturing environment, being a hybrid production and demonstration facility for the design, manufacturing, assembly, testing and support of future products. It is currently undergoing transition into production status, and has several advanced manufacturing capabilities under development.

BAE Systems is working on the challenge of fully understanding and articulating the manufacturing environment and effect of changing environmental factors on low volume, high tolerance, highly flexible advanced manufacturing processes. There is a need for better environmental data and an intelligent decision making process linked to it, with a longer-term plan to bring this into the Industrial internet of things (IoT) architecture that is being developed to enable a truly Industry 4.0 facility. All of this links to BAE Systems net zero drivers. This project addressing these challenges will allow BAE Systems to start understanding and working to tighter and more quantified thresholds to lower emissions whilst ensuring there are no concerns around affecting critical manufacturing processes.

Objectives and Considerations:

BAE Systems is interested in understanding the changing environmental factors of their facilities and the effect of those factors on production. BAE Systems aim to utilise environment monitoring data along with artificial intelligence (AI) to create resource and energy efficiency insights to improve carbon emissions whilst not affecting production throughput. Once the potential capabilities of such analysis in the environment are proven, this solution will be the foundation of the wider sustainability strategy within current, future and legacy production facilities across the company. The phase 1 solution is designed to be a proof of concept while phase 2 solution will be expected to run a pilot version of the designed solution within the intended environment, running locally and having the ability to give insights on several different potentially relevant variables to their problem. There will be an evaluation activity that will take place at the end of Phase 1 with both BAE Systems and Digital Catapult.

BAE Systems does not plan to define a specific aspect to analyse, instead, they wish to collect and offer as much facility data as possible to the tech innovators allowing exploratory analysis to identify opportunities for AI-based optimisation. BAE Systems have access to prototype IoT sensors which can be utilised and data from these sensors will be made available to tech innovators. It should be noted that these sensors will not be part of any industrialised solution.

Additionally, a low-energy consuming artificial intelligence (AI) (i.e.: Green AI) must be considered. Efficiency of code, hardware used and the environmental impact of implementing the AI itself must be part of the consideration of this project for full end-to-end transparency of the benefits analysis.

Applicants to this challenge will be given a virtual explanation/tour of the factory at the earlier stages of selection, with the two applicants that are selected being given the opportunity for an in-person visit to the factory.

For this Challenge

BAE Systems is interested in a system that provides analysis of changing environmental factors (such as temperature, humidity etc.) in their Factory of the Future, which supports low volume, high tolerance, highly flexible advanced manufacturing. The system should utilise facility data to offer relevant AI powered analysis and decisions/recommendations that can lead to resource optimisation and other core beneficial factors.

Sustainable and responsible adoption of AI is of paramount importance to provide full end-to-end transparency of the benefits of the system. So, for instance, efficiency of code, hardware used and the environmental impact of implementing the AI itself will be important aspects of the evaluation of the system. The solution is expected to result in a pilot running locally at the Factory of the Future site. Should this solution prove effective, it will be the foundation of the wider sustainability strategy within current, future and legacy production facilities across BAE Systems where it will become part of the Tempest / FCAS manufacturing strategy. We would also want to consider such capabilities in our company wide office environments where relevant occupancy data may also be made available depending on scoping.

Prerequisites for this challenge:

• All tech innovators applying to this specific challenge should be able to state clearly how they involve responsible AI, their own sustainability and security considerations should all be taken into account and with evidence.
• Digital Catapult will only accept UK-based companies as applicants to the programme. There are also limitations on the country of origin of any hardware used by the startups.
• Companies must be able to meet the expected security requirements for hardware. Such details can be made available upon request.
• BAE Systems have an existing array of environment monitoring sensors and data from these sensors will be made available to tech innovators.
• Innovators may recommend additional/alternative sensors however deployment of new sensors will be subject to security assessment.
• There must be no use of any cloud environments for either data storage or data processing. Any work must be undertaken in the UK. However, it is important to note that any developed solution must be built with future aspirations for cloud platform compatibility in mind.
• BAE expects to work with SMEs with an open knowledge-sharing approach in order to upskill the UK plc.

Technology interested in adopting:

• Artificial Intelligence
• LLM (local instances)
• Low-cost environmental sensing (cyber secure)
• Connected shop floor – Intelligent factory
• Low-carbon smart building system
• Power / resource monitoring
• Visualisation of environmental monitoring

Expected sustainability improvement:

• Reducing energy consumption
• Improving production efficiency
• Improving utilisation
• Reducing waste
• Improving Resource Efficiency