Thales and QinetiQ advance UK soft-kill protection

Thales UK and QinetiQ have been selected by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory to develop and demonstrate a next-generation electro-optic countermeasure concept for armoured vehicles.

The work forms part of the UK’s Next Generation Soft Kill programme, which is exploring how advanced electro-optic effects can support future active protection systems. The concept will align with the UK Modular Integrated Protection System architecture, giving the Army a route to integrate sensors, processors, countermeasures, and effectors across current and future land platforms.

Armoured vehicle protection is moving beyond passive armour and bolt-on defensive kits. Modern survivability increasingly depends on a connected sequence: detect the threat, classify it, assess the engagement, select a response, and deploy an effect before the vehicle is hit. Hard-kill active protection systems physically intercept incoming threats. Soft-kill systems aim to disrupt targeting, guidance, or tracking before an incoming weapon reaches the platform.

The NGSK work will draw on Thales’ experience in threat warning sensors, defensive aids, and electro-optic technologies, while QinetiQ will support test, evaluation, and technical assessment. Several candidate designs will be considered before one concept is selected for prototype development and testing. That staged structure reflects the difficulty of moving protection technology from promising effect to battlefield-ready system.

The threat environment has changed quickly. Anti-tank guided missiles, top-attack weapons, loitering munitions, drones, laser designators, electro-optical targeting systems, and multi-sensor kill chains now place pressure on vehicle design. Ukraine has shown how cheap aerial sensors can expose armoured vehicles to artillery, FPV drones, and precision attack. Heavy armour still has value, but it now sits alongside electronic protection, signature management, counter-drone equipment, and active defence.

Electro-optic countermeasures occupy a difficult engineering space. A system must detect a threat, classify it accurately, direct energy or optical disruption with precision, and avoid interfering with friendly systems. The hardware has to withstand vibration, shock, dust, mud, heat, cold, electromagnetic interference, and damage. The software has to make rapid decisions with enough confidence to protect the crew without triggering constantly against false alarms.

Open architecture will be central to adoption. Vehicle fleets are rarely uniform, and even the same vehicle type may have different power margins, roof layouts, sensor fits, mission systems, datalinks, and upgrade histories. A protection system that only works on a single bespoke platform has limited fleet value. MIPS is intended to avoid that trap by creating a more modular route for future sensors, processors, effectors, and control systems.

The same pressure appears across artillery, armour, and vehicle-modernisation programmes. QinetiQ’s work on RCH155 trials showed how test, assurance, qualification, ammunition behaviour, and safety can become critical parts of fielding a new capability. NGSK follows the same logic in survivability: the prototype has to prove not only that the effect works, but that it can be integrated, tested, maintained, and trusted by crews.

There is also a sovereign production layer. Domestic protection technology gives the UK more control over threat libraries, upgrade cycles, platform interfaces, test data, and future export potential. Imported active protection systems can offer speed, but they may restrict software access, adaptation, and through-life modification. A UK-led electro-optic countermeasure route supports capability in sensors, optics, emitters, rugged computing, software, systems integration, and test services.

Vehicle manufacturers will also need to design around active protection more deliberately. A survivability suite needs power, cooling, field of view, mounting space, computing resources, and safe integration with radios, remote weapon stations, smoke systems, and other sensors. Retrofitting protection onto vehicles designed without those margins can drive cost and compromise performance.

Testing will decide the programme’s credibility. A soft-kill system has to be evaluated against representative seekers, sensors, approach angles, environmental conditions, clutter, and operational false-alarm scenarios. It must work while a vehicle is moving, when the crew is under workload, and when the surrounding electromagnetic environment is noisy. A system that triggers too often will be ignored. A system that hesitates will not protect the platform.

NGSK gives the UK a route to develop the next layer of armoured vehicle protection around domestic sensor and electro-optic expertise. The prototype phase will show whether Thales, QinetiQ, and the wider supplier base can create a system that is rugged, affordable, adaptable, and practical across the Army’s future vehicle fleet.