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The aim of this thesis is to enhance local situational awareness for crews operating military land platforms within urban environments. Proposed is the utilisation of modern, automotive, Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) sensing technologies for applications within military land vehicles to enhance local situational awareness. Thus, improving crew, civilian, platform and mission survivability and safety in a cost-effective manner. One current military area of operations is within diverse and complex urban environments, these operating environments can be described as Congested, Cluttered, Contested, Connected and Constrained (the 5C's). Outside the military environment, over the past 10 years significant advances within the automotive sector regarding sensing technologies and autonomous systems have increased exponentially. Driven by enormous investment from the commercial/private automotive Tier 1 and 2 suppliers, with recent years seeing many government sponsored, technology accelerator programs. The results of this significant global investment have produced low cost, advanced, sensing technologies and sensing capabilities, coupled with advanced sensor fusion capabilities, which could potentially be exploited within military land platforms to increase situational awareness. This thesis looks to address the challenges faced by defence agencies by investigating and evaluating how the advancements in COTS sensing technologies can be taken advantage of to increase situational awareness for crews of Mounted Combat Systems (MCS) within chaotic urban environments. All outputs aim to support a cost-effective, rapid integration solution for current and future sensing technologies, harmonised with military land systems through a novel Generic Sensor Fusion Electronic Architecture (GSFEA). The main contributions of the thesis are: • First contribution: A detailed two-part study has been conducted to assess the applicability of COTS automotive sensing technologies and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for use within military land platforms. Additionally, a detailed review of COTS integration into the military domain has been conducted, highlighting the barriers to COTS integration within military land systems. • Second contribution: Utilising the results from the first contribution, a novel COTS sensing technologies classification concept (Commercial Technology Integration Levels (CTIL)) was developed. Along with a collection of novel, detailed, MCS COTS sensing technologies use cases, approved by the UK MoD. CTIL is a new evaluation framework and early de-risking tool that supports effective defence procurement strategies by evaluating the integration requirements for the rapid adoption of new capabilities and emerging technologies. • Third, fourth and fifth contribution: The design and development of a novel Generic Sensor Fusion Electronic Architecture for integrating COTS sensing technologies with the current Def Stan 23-009 Generic Vehicle Architecture (GVA) and STANAG 4754 NATO Generic vehicle Architecture (NGVA). • Sixth contribution: Verification and validation of the proposed solutions presented above through a complex testbed compatible with the GVA / NGVA. The results from this validation also provided a set of critical recommendations for the Def Stan 23- 009 GVA, which have been reviewed by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence.

Heat, pressure waves and fragments are the main products of an explosion which is a complex physical event that, in microseconds, converts explosive material into gases and heat and delivers hundreds of fragments with speeds that generally exceed a kilometre per second. Of the three products, fragments travel the furthest and cause the most destruction. For example, fragments from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), bombs or fragmenting devices, can destroy or damage armoured military vehicles as well as injuring or killing troops. This thesis will consider only explosion fragments. To protect military vehicles, engineers and designers need to consider how explosions affects their designs. A new vehicle design experiencing an explosion would be destructive, time consuming and costly and so one of the most effective ways, of evaluating a new design, is to employ an accurate computer simulation. Computer methods such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA) provide an accurate simulation, but they are computer intensive and preventatively slow. The aim of this thesis is to create a fast and accurate simulation of explosion fragments, as an alternative to FEA. The first contribution involves building a model to create fragments on a warhead's cylindrical casing. The casing is unfurled into a rectangle using templates to define the shape of fragments and two Poisson distributions are used to calculate the fragments' lengths and widths and determine the number of fragments. To assess the accuracy of the final model the number and weight of created fragments is checked against Mott's accurate distribution linking the number and weight of fragments. A high correlation coefficient of 0.99 is achieved, showing this new model is accurate. The fast execution time of this model is approximately 0.1 seconds. The second contribution involves enhancing the equation that calculates the initial velocity of fragments. Experimental data is used to shape a graph of initial velocity of fragments against the warhead's length. This information is then used to modify an existing two-dimensional equation that calculates the initial velocity of fragments, through applying the conservation of energy and momentum. The resultant equations are verified against experimental data to reveal the new equations are accurate with correlation coefficients greater than 0.89. The fast execution times of the equations are approximately 35 microseconds. The third contribution involves enhancing the equation that calculates the initial angle of projection of fragments. Experimental data is used to shape a graph of initial angle of projection of fragments against the warhead's length. This information is then used to create a new equation, incorporating the second contribution and published research that indicates how initial angles of projection are affected by the shape of the expanding casing. The new equation is verified against several experimental data sets and achieves correlation coefficients greater than 0.88 which shows the new equation is accurate. An alternative equation, used in some FEA simulations, has a significantly lower correlation coefficient against the same experimental data. The fast execution time of the new equation is approximately 18 microseconds. The final contribution involves the creation of an explosion fragment simulation. The simulation uses the equations and models from the first, second and third contributions and includes equations to calculate the flight of fragments and armour penetration. The volume of the target vehicle is divided into cubes and the probability that a cube is hit by fragments is calculated. The resultant simulation is verified by providing test results of the initial impact of fragments, known as witness plates in explosion experiments, and checking them against results produced by FEA simulations and physical experiments. The contribution simulation has similar test results as the FEA simulations except there are fewer hits. This is probably because small fragments are omitted in the contribution simulation. The number of hits in the experimental results is similar to the number of hits in the contribution simulation. The execution time of the simulation is approximately 0.2 seconds, but this can be reduced if the computer code is optimised. An FEA simulation can take many minutes or hours to complete an analysis.