UK involvement in NATO science and technology activities
Dstl coordinates UK science and technology involvement in NATO and sponsors UK businesses and academic institutions to take part in these activities.
Defence Science and Technology (DST) and the Defence Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl) lead the UK’s involvement in all NATO science and technology activity, on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and our government.
Dstl sponsorship for UK participation in NATO science and technology
UK academia and industry, including small and medium-sized enterprises, are welcome to engage in the many science and technology activities taking place in NATO, but you must contact Dstl first.
Email us if you’re interested: NATONC@dstl.gov.uk.
We chair and run various activities on behalf of NATO and need to act as sponsors for any UK entity that wishes to engage in NATO science and technology.
NATO STO technical panels manage work across range of scientific activities
The NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO) aims to meet the collective needs of NATO, NATO nations and partner nations in the fields of science and technology.
The 7 STO technical panels manage collaboration across a wide range of scientific research activities:
- Applied Vehicle Technology (AVT)
- Human Factors and Medicine (HFM)
- Information Systems Technology (IST)
- System Analysis and Studies (SAS)
- Systems Concepts and Integration (SCI)
- Sensors and Electronic Technology (SET)
- NATO Modelling and Simulation Group (NMSG)
These panels are made up of:
- national representatives
- world-class scientists
- engineers
- information specialists
They provide critical technical oversight as well as a communication link to military users and other NATO bodies.
In any given year, more than 3,500 scientists and engineers from NATO and its partners are working on approximately 140 research activities being conducted by these technical teams. These activities all result in the publication of highly valued scientific literature published by the STO.
Benefits of NATO collaboration
The NATO collaboration ensures the following:
- the cost leverage ranges from 10 to 100 times the value of Dstl’s contribution - providing access to trials that would otherwise be unaffordable
- we achieve outcomes simply not possible without the collaboration through access to specialist facilities
- the significant improvement in the overall technical quality of UK programme outputs due to multinational insights and efforts providing wider validated advice for MOD
- the development of the scientific underpinning for frameworks to interoperate with our allies such as standard agreements (STANAGS)
- support to industry’s research and development goals
- access to global markets
What this collaboration has achieved so far
IR signature modelling
Infrared (IR) signatures are a niche area with limited options to validate tools or techniques except internationally.
The UK maintains and demonstrates a world-leading capability to model IR signatures, which is important for understanding how to detect or defeat red systems and when designing survivable blue systems.
Working in NATO allows the UK to test its detection against a wider range of missiles and reduces the risk of our sensors missing missile signatures.
Burden-sharing boosts data sets
Work at NATO’s Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) enabled the development of synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) and automatic target recognition (ATR) systems for maritime Mine Counter Measure operations. SAS is now operational with Royal Navy uncrewed assets.
A Mine Counter Measures ATR Joint Research Project shared, compared and benchmarked algorithms and approaches from across a range of nations, as well as helping to build a combined dataset. Datasets are entirely reliant on at-sea trials and would be expensive to generate single-handedly.
Uncrewed air vehicle dynamics
An uncrewed combat air vehicle model was collaboratively designed, built and tested in the UK’s main transonic wind tunnel. This enabled access to testing at NASA’s Langley Research Center. The activity will be replicated for a representative fighter configuration, relevant for the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), in the European Transonic Windtunnel in Germany.
Sensor networking and interoperability
Joint experimentation and demonstration of SAPIENT - the UK developed concept of networks of AI-enabled sensors combined with autonomous fusion and sensor/effector-management - to counter uncrewed air systems (C-UAS).
This has led to the development of a much-needed NATO standard (STANREC 4869), which enables sensors and effectors from different nations to interoperate effectively in a C-UAS scenario.
Deep Space Radar
We worked with NATO allies on space monitoring experiments. This partnership meant they could collaborate quickly without needing separate agreements with each country.
These experiments were the first to combine different types of equipment from multiple countries. They linked space-tracking radars from America and Germany with large radio telescopes from the UK and Europe.
Using powerful transmitters, large antennas, and sensitive receivers together created much better detection abilities over very long distances. This kind of setup wouldn’t normally be possible for one country alone, because you need different types of equipment spread across international locations to make it work effectively.
The key improvement is that this approach allows much better monitoring of objects in space by combining the strengths of different technologies from different countries.
Updates to this page
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Added further details on the achievements of the NATO collaboration with Dstl to date.
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First published.