General Atomics

STS Defence awarded SDA contract for SCHM Phase 2

STS Defence has been awarded a contract to further develop and demonstrate software algorithms for the Submarine Delivery Agency (SDA), following on from a previous Phase 1 project investigating Sensor Channel Health Monitoring (SCHM).



Image courtesy STS Defence / credit Defence Imagery

The Phase 2 contract award will mature the SCHM algorithms to TRL 5, working alongside the Royal Navy’s FASTER programme.

STS Defence was awarded the previous Phase 1 study to investigate SCHM for the SDA in May 2022. During this phase we developed a set of SCHM algorithms and demonstrated a prototype to TRL 4, using our background IPR and expertise in developing machine learning algorithms on previous Innovate UK-funded projects. This included a strong understanding of sensor behaviour in challenging environments, analysis of vibration data, and experience of building a synthetic dataset and environment for evaluating our algorithm candidates.

Dr David Garrity, Chief Technology Officer of STS Defence, said “We are excited to have this opportunity to further develop the approaches we demonstrated under Phase 1, accelerating the deployment of this technology into a representative environment for the RN.”

The Phase 2 project will initially run de-risking activities from December 2025 until the end of March 2026, before progressing to refinement of the algorithms and prototype application over the following 12 months, with subsequent implementation in a representative environment.

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