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France’s Elno talks up bone conduction headsets
September 10th, 2009 | DSEI 2009 | Posted by Tom Kington
After sales success with the French military, French firm Elno is seeking overseas customers for its bone conduction radio headsets, which allow the wearer to speak without a microphone and listen without a headphone.
The firm’s OH395 full bone conduction headset, which is connected to a push to talk radio, features two pads which perch at the top of the jawbone, just in front of the ear. The bone vibration caused by the wearer speaking is picked by the pads and transmitted as voice communication. The pad also turns incoming voice into vibrations which are picked up by the facial bone and registered as sound by the ear.
Elno’s export manager Jean-Jerome Ambrosini said the system allows wearers to use face masks and still communicate, and to wear earplugs yet still hear incoming communication. When not wearing earplugs, users can listen to radio communication while still focusing on ambient sound.
Bone conducting speaker technology is already on the market, but Ambrosini said Elno was the first company to combine the speaker with a microphone in one component. “Throat microphones are the same principle but we believe they are less effective at picking up the wearer’s voice than our product,” he said. “You also need an Adam’s Apple to use a throat mike, which rules out women.” Since the system works by transmitting and receiving vibrations, the headset will not work well in a vibrating environment such on board a tracked vehicle, said Ambrosini.
Elno has received an order for 22,000 headsets from Sagem as part of the French military’s Felin future soldier program. Five hundred prototypes have already been delivered and series production has begun. Sets are being sold at between 200 and 500 euros each depending on configuration. A contract has also been signed with the French police, while an order for the French special forces will come with traditional microphones. “The encryption technology they use in their radio was creating interference with our microphone,” said Ambrosini.
Tags: C2, communications, electronics
Bowmen spirals towards smaller upgrades
September 8th, 2009 | DSEI 2009 | Posted by Andrew Chuter
Plans by the British military to undertake large scale spiral upgrades of the Bowman communications system are dead according to a senior General Dynamics UK executive talking at DSEi 2009.
Instead, said Dave Jarratt, company C4I business development director, the Ministry of Defence is implementing a series of smaller, more digestible, upgrades on its key tactical voice and data communications system.
“People have realised the big bang type of upgrade is too difficult. I think we will go to much smaller increments in the future’, he said briefing reporters at DSEi on the progress the company has made introducing improvements to the system.
General Dynamics is the prime contractor and systems integrator responsible for delivering the Bowman system to the British armed services.
Jarratt said “as a concept[the next major upgrade], BCIP6, is dead. We are studying BCIP 5.5 now”
Elements of that improvement program have aleady been included in BCIP5 and the more recently contracted BCIP5.4 .
Fielding of BCIP5 is underway now and the smaller BCIP5.4 upgrade is now in development.Trials are due to kick off at the end of this year.
The General Dynamics executive said the company and the MoD are in the midst of defining what should be included in the next round of spiral developments.
“Recommendations on candidate capabilities are due in the fourth quarter of this year and we hope to be under contract in the second quarter of 2010″, said Jarrett.
The executive described BCIP5 as a “step change” up from earlier standards of Bowman covering increased network stability and robustness, improved situational awareness, new hardware, better command and control ,simplified communications planning and other improvements.
A three year roll out of the new standard started in January and the new capabilities should be field in Afghanistan in 2011.
Jarrett said that essentially BCIP5 was the capability originally contracted for in 2001. “It’s very different from what is currently in the field’, he said.
BCIP5.4 is a much smaller improvement covering refreshed and additional data terminals, new radio battery designs, migration to a Windows XP operating system and other upgrades.
The Bowman program, including upgrades, is currently worth 2.6 billion Pounds.