Light Structures reports first call European Defense Fund success

Oslo, Norway: Maritime structural health monitoring specialist Light Structures is a member of two winning consortia in the first call of the European Defense Fund (EDF). Both consortia consist of the leading naval yards in Europe, organized through The Shipyards’ & Maritime Equipment Association of Europe (Sea Europe), national delegates, and the Norwegian partners SINTEF, Kongsberg, Jotne and Light Structures.

The EDF was established to support high-end defense capability projects such as the next generation of aircraft fighters, tanks and ships, as well as critical defense technologies such as military cloud, AI, semiconductors, space, cyber or medical counter- measures. Following the first ever EDF request for proposals, 61 collaborative defense research and development projects with a total EU support of almost €1.2 billion have been selected for funding.

The dTHOR consortium, lead by SINTEF (Norway), has been awarded €14.5 Million for research on the advancement of interpreting results from Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems in a Navy context (EDF-2021-NAVAL-R-SSHM). dTHOR (Digital Ship Structural Health Monitoring), will develop the next generation of predictive systems based on advanced sensors, a digital framework complying with recognised open standards for data exchange, and hybrid analysis and modelling combining physics-based, data-driven models.

“dTHOR is an especially relevant project as it is dedicated to developments within our core expertise of Structural Health Monitoring,” comments Geir Sagvolden, CTO, Light Structures. “Our SENSFIB^TM sensors and data analysis expertise will be applied to provide the high-quality data expected of a next generation system that can be used to improve vessel and asset safety as well as to reduce the lifetime maintenance costs of naval and commercial ships.”

Light Structures is also a member of the EDINAF consortium, lead by Navantia (Spain), which has been awarded €29 Million for research on the next generation Digital Ship and Ship Digital Architecture (call: EDF-2021-NAVAL-R-DSSDA). EDINAF (European Digital Naval Foundation) will provide a European digital ship reference architecture, integrating the systems onboard to enhance operational capabilities.

“The digital focus within EDINAF will help Light Structures to strengthen and expand our on-going program of digitalising the data that our SENSFIB^TM systems acquire,” adds Geir Sagvolden. “The potential for unlocking even deeper insight from SHM is very exciting but it’s essential to move towards a more standardised approach regardless of data source if we are to truly benefit from maritime digitalisation, making EDINAF an important initiative for all maritime stakeholders.”

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Note for editors:

Fact sheets on the successful first round EDF projects can be download here.

About Light Structures AS

Light Structures AS was founded in 2001 as a spin-off from the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment and is now established as the leading provider of turnkey fiber optic stress and fatigue monitoring systems based on Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) technology. Light Structures leverages its passion for monitoring to deliver custom solutions based on its SENSFIB^TM portfolio for the qualification of uncertainties in relation to ship and maritime asset design, safety and operations.

More than 300 SENSFIB^TM systems have been installed globally for diverse applications, vessels and customers. Light Structures is headquartered in Oslo and has a growing network of international offices. SENSFIB^TM solutions are sold through a dedicated network of partners and agents worldwide. www.lightstructures.com

About SENSFIB^TM

The patented and intrinsically safe SENSFIB^TM range unlocks environmental and financial benefits by giving ship owners and operators the potential to avoid incidents before they happen or to gain a deeper understanding of causes during incident investigation. The range includes diverse solutions that can be customized for specific applications such as Hull Stress Monitoring, FPSO Monitoring, Ice Load Monitoring, Sloshing Monitoring, and the customized HullInfo application. In addition to real-time operational data for decision support on board, SENSFIB^TM also provides data for Active Fatigue Management reports, which can contribute to reducing operational cost and extending a vessel’s lifetime. Leveraging the reliability and precision of FBG technology, SENSFIB^TM provides unique visibility into asset integrity, enabling improved predictive & condition-based monitoring to be integrated in newbuild vessels or retrofits. Data from SENSFIB^TM systems is available on dedicated user terminals, through integrated automation and control systems, and as part of IoT networks and cloud-based operational platforms.