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2024-03-06

Arquus Showcases Tactical Vehicle Expertise at World Defense Show

Since its creation, Arquus has positioned itself as a key and sustainable player in the design, production, and maintenance of systems and tactical armoured vehicles.

Being present again for the second edition of the World Defense Show (WDS) at the French Pavilion, Arquus reaffirmed its industrial cooperation capabilities in key geographical areas such as Africa and the Middle East and showcased its extensively tested vehicle range.

Arquus develops strong bilateral relationships with its partners to offer complete vehicle manufacturing that meets the client’s specific requirements. In the context of industrial cooperation, the company distinguishes itself by supporting local teams with skill and technology transfers to independently design modern vehicles suited to the needs of local armies.

The deployment of industrial cooperation perfectly fits geographical imperatives and establishes a real customer relationship by integrating local partners. This type of partnership has already proven successful with iconic vehicles from the Arquus range, such as SHERPA and VAB. The VAB is an example of a successful industrial cooperation.

Arquus has already collaborated with a Middle Eastern country to modernise an entire fleet of this vehicle. The Middle Eastern VABs benefit from performance improvements in drivetrain, braking capabilities, and steering elements.

To support its clients, Arquus experts specialise in various services, including localising training, warranty and initial support for the first vehicles built in France; gradual vehicle assembly and enhancing maintenance skills; assisting in coordinating the setup of lines such as local industry production or assembly lines; in-country sourcing, etc.

With all these services, the vehicles maintain enhanced, unparalleled performance, perfectly adapted to various tension situations, taking into account geographical, financial, or geopolitical challenges.

Arquus’ VAB MK3, presented at the WDS, is part of the 6x6 medium vehicles that offer very high-level performance in terms of mobility, protection, and payload, allowing it to fulfil many missions from troop transport to fire support, backed by the latest generation systems. The VAB MK3 has been extensively tested on various terrains for over 40 years, especially in the Middle East.

The VAB MK3 is a modular and configurable vehicle in many versions to best meet customer needs. At WDS, it was presented with its John Cockerill defence CP WS25 turret, which offers an internal reloading capability.

Building Digital Twin Demonstrator

The French MOD’s procurement and technology agency (DGA), with the support of its Defense Innovation Agency (AID), entrusted the KNDS-ARQUUS consortium with the experimentation of the first digital twin demonstrator for a ground combat system. This digital twin demonstrator is the first to be applied to a ground combat vehicle.

The development of this demonstrator will lead to a full-scale deployment on 20 VBCI vehicles and to the experimentation of predictive maintenance for an initial fleet of the Army’s vehicles.

The defence technology project “Digitisation of maintenance” (NumCo) aims to develop and experiment with a digital twin demonstrator of the VBCI infantry fighting vehicle. It will be the very first digital twin in the field of ground combat systems.

Thanks to advanced modelling and simulation capabilities, the technology developed by KNDS and ARQUUS will enable the industry, the DGA, and the Army to jointly implement a virtual twin of the VBCI vehicle to support engineering and maintenance activities.

The NumCo digital twin builds on the experience gained over several years by the KNDS-ARQUUS consortium, particularly within the framework of the European Commission’s FAMOUS defence industrial development programme.

The NumCo digital twin demonstrator will be developed through an agile approach over two years and then improved over two years with the training data from 20 instrumented VBCI. The experimentation could be extended to an additional batch of 20 VBCI.

As part of this experimentation, several Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) sensors will be deployed on the physical vehicles to collect large amounts of data, analyse them and transcribe them into digital models and virtual representations. The system will rely on multiple predictive algorithms that will determine the lifespan of a variety of mechanical parts based on vehicle usage, anticipate breakdown risks, and personalise maintenance operations for each vehicle, facilitating failure diagnosis.

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