MBDA has a new company wide drive called Concept Visions to develop highly innovative fire support system concepts to shape the future defense market in key areas for 2030 and beyond.

The initiative was released at the Farnborough International Airshow yesterday by the missile systems MBDA, which is jointly held by BAE Systems, EADS, and Finmeccanica.

The resulting Concept Visions outputs present an integrated fire support solution for dismounted infantry and addresses the challenges they would face when operating in increasingly complex environments with the need to manage precision target identification along with severe constraints to reducing the collateral footprint.

The CVS101 system concept, released yesterday, is designed as an infantry fire support weapon system for 2030 and beyond, the company said. Its purpose would be to provide a light-weight, long range precision weapon allowing it to deliver a heavy punch for use at lower levels within a force structure. It is designed to meet urban challenges with greater freedom to engage opportunity targets and its flexibility, ready availability and responsiveness would deliver precision fire support against a wide range of military and peace keeping roles.

Unlike current weapons, the CVS101 system would be capable of dealing with threats that are intermingled with friendly forces or civilian populations by being able to abide by strict rules of engagement and collateral restraints. This operational edge would be provided via its highly accurate and precise targeting sensors, and aiming capability together with a contemporary, easy to use fire control system that ensures man-in-the-loop decision making at all times.

Sight targeting opportunities in complex urban environments thanks to its net-centric integration capability when used alongside sensors in the tactical information network.

Under the Concept Vision initiative, MBDA challenged its European workforce to provide ideas for ways the company’s technologies and future system concepts might improve the capability of the infantry soldier. After a filtering process, the winning solutions were subjected to an intensive program of user consultation, experimentation and concept development to bring the ideas together–building a “concept car” approach within the missile market–to provide a tangible, interactive vision of the future, the company said in a statement.

Executive Group Director Technical/Managing Director U.K. MBDA Steve Wadey said: “The new Concept Visions process represents another example of MBDA driving innovation in the missile systems market, allowing us to develop a vision of the future for key Defence domains. It highlights the inherent capabilities of MBDA to innovate rapidly and radically, and bring to life the technological dreams of our workforce thereby permitting customers, suppliers and employees to see the evolution of military capability in a different way.”