Name, title and affiliation: Dr. Gunnar Hult, Deputy Swedish National Armaments Director, Chief Scientist at the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (the Swedish Armed Forces Procurement Agency), and adjunct professor in Military Technology at the Swedish National Defense College.
Title of speech: Innovative Thinking in Arms Acquisition
Abstract: Systems Engineering principles have for many years been applied extensively in the arms acquisition community, sometimes under other headings, e.g. systems integration. With an ongoing recession, reducing defense budgets, most arms programs not meeting budget and time constraints, and non-military applications increasingly driving technology, there is a need to revisit and take a fresh look at some of the established principles underpinning most arms acquisition programs.
Biographical information: Gunnar Hult has a Ph.D. in Information Theory (the mathematical theory of digital signal communications), and an M.A. in Slavic and Semitic Languages, and Political Science. As a conscript, and subsequently as a captain in the reserves, he served as interpreter and interrogator in the Swedish Armed Forces. He is presently the Deputy Swedish National Armaments Director, Chief Scientist at the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (the Swedish Armed Forces Procurement Agency), and adjunct professor in Military Technology at the Swedish National Defense College.
Gunnar Hult has a wide experience in arms development and acquisition, both from having been a program manager of major arms programs in the 1990s, e.g. an indigenous Swedish program resembling the Link16 tactical data link, as well as from his present extensive involvement in various European collaborative defence programs. These programs are run within organizations such as NATO, the European Defence Agency, the Letter of Intent/Framework Agreement, the European Technology Acquisition Program, and the Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en Matière d'Armement. His activities also include participation in several bilateral programs between Sweden and other nations.
Name, title and affiliation: Dr Fredrik Bruhn, VP, ÅAC Microtec AB
Title of speech: International plug-and-play in aerospace demonstrated on a Swedish nanosatellite
Biographical information: Dr Fredrik Bruhn, Vice President and responsible for Sales and Marketing of Aerospace and Defence Business, is a co-founder of ÅAC Microtec. He has designed and implemented multifunctional microsystem architectures for spacecraft and robotics. He is a senior designer of the Micro-Link 1 nanosatellite. Among his other accomplishments, he has designed a highly miniaturized submersible robotic craft for the sub-surface exploration of Europa, a moon of Jupiter. In addition, he has been awarded two NASA technology innovation awards for his work at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He holds a Ph.D. in microsystem technologies for space applications and a M.Sc. in atomic and molecular physics from Uppsala University. He is an alumnus of the International Space University (ISU) from the SSP'01 in Bremen, Germany.
Additional information: The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has developed a plug-and-play standard for aerospace which eliminates labor during assembly, integration, and test of complex systems. ÅAC Microtec, a young small-medium enterprise based in Uppsala, is co-developing this standard with AFRL and is currently building the first fully plug-and-play satellite on behalf of the Swedish National Space Board.