New starts for America's Fiscal Year 2003 Foreign Comparative Testing (FCT) programme highlight a range of rest-of-the-world electronics, the key elements of which are as follows:
• Anti-jam Global Positioning System (GPS) antenna A US Navy effort to evaluate a Raytheon Systems Ltd. (UK) developed shipboard anti-jam GPS antenna.
• Body-worn radar warning receiver A US Special Operations Command evaluation of a Filtronic Components and Spectrum Solutions (UK) - developed body-worn radar warning receiver.
• Corona monitoring A US Navy programme to evaluate corona monitoring cameras from CSIR (South Africa) and OFIL Ltd (Israel) for use in high power Very Low/Low Frequency (3 to 300 kHz) communications systems.
• Fuel cells The US Army plans to evaluate electrochemical fuel cells from Advanced Power Sources (UK), Ballard Power Systems (Canada), Hydrogenics (Canada), NoVars (Germany) and Smart Fuel Cells (Germany) as power sources for individual soldier equipment as part of its 'Land Warrior' programme.
• Intruder detection system A US Air Force evaluation of a Sensor Electronics Ltd. (UK) wireless-linked, palm-sized, infrared passive intruder sensor.
• Silverised Kevlar A US Army programme to evaluate silverised Kevlar from Silverleaf Materials Ltd. (Canada) for use in conductive ground plane, electro-magnetic interference shielding and static discharge applications aboard the RAH-66 Comanche battlefield scout helicopter.
• Specific emitter identification A US Navy effort to evaluate QinetiQ (UK) - sourced circuit cards for passive emitter identification and fingerprinting in naval applications.
• Underwater communications and tracking system A US Navy programme to evaluate a Nautronix (Australia) digital communications system that is designed to facilitate real-time positional data exchange between submarines participating in open ocean exercises.