15 Nov 2012 – the use of the Intermittent Fault Detection & Isolation System (IFDIS™) has won the US Department of Defence’s Maintenance “Great Ideas” award for a second time, following its original success in 2010.  

“This is an incredible achievement by the combined team of Universal Synaptics Corporation and TQS, who together supplied the original IFDIS™ programme for use on F-16 radar LRUs,” said CTL Technical Director Jim Cockram (picture above with, on the left, Bryan Steadman of TQS and, centre, Ken Anderson from Universal Synaptics Corporation), “especially when you consider that they won it so decisively in 2010.  The continuing use of the IFDIS™ to improve the mission capability and availability of F-16 radar LRUs was up against some stiff competition in the final at this year’s DoD maintenance symposium, but thanks to the professional and robust presentation delivered by Ken Anderson of USC, nobody in the room was in any doubt about it being the clear winner”.  

The DoD Maintenance Symposium and Exhibition is the leading annual event for DoD maintainers and their industry counterparts, and its Great Ideas Competition provides a forum for the sharing of new and innovative ideas relative to maintenance technologies and processes. USC was one of 6 finalists selected from approximately 300 eligible Great Ideas submissions for the opportunity of participating in the competition.  Each of the finalists had to deliver a 15-minute presentation to an audience of approximately 1500 senior DoD officers, officials and industry leaders, before a vote was conducted to establish the winner.  The IFDIS™ won the award in recognition of its amazing success in increasing the availability of the MLPRF LRU from the F-16 radar.  To date $39M of flight hardware previously considered ‘unrepairable’ has been recovered for use, its MTBR has tripled and maintenance savings of $11M accrued.

Jim Cockram was in attendance for the second year running on behalf of CTL to support USC, as their European partner.  “In 2011 USC came second with their neural electronic repair and diagnostic system, so for them to have been in the final 3 years in a row is an incredible achievement, and to have won it twice out of those 3 years is simply astounding” said Cockram.  “It illustrates how capable and effective the IFDIS™ technology is, and it underlines just how seriously it is being taken by the DoD”.

Speaking from CTL’s office in Scotland, Managing Director Giles Huby applauded the team at USC on their latest success.  “Everybody at Copernicus Technology Ltd is thrilled to hear the news that USC and the IFDIS™ have won the prestigious Great Ideas prize yet again!  We would like to offer our wholehearted congratulations to the entire team at Universal Synaptics.  It’s an incredible achievement and further emphasises just how important this technology is, which is exactly why CTL are so committed to supplying this capability to customers across Europe and Australia: to give them the definitive competitive edge”.

by Daniel Jones, Network & Communications Manager, Aerospace, Aviation & Defence KTN

Human bodies and aircraft might not seem to be very similar at first glance, but they do share one common characteristic; when they go wrong, the consequences can be disastrous.

Humans are susceptible to myriad conditions, disorders and ailments that can be restrictive, debilitating or lethal; our first knowledge that something is wrong is a symptom, but often we must rely on the expertise and judgement of those operating within the medical profession to deduce from the symptom what the condition is and how best to treat it.

Read more.....

01 Aug 2012 – Copernicus Technology Ltd (CTL) is proud to announce that it is now an Industry Partner of the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Through-life Engineering Services (EPSRC Centre in TES), which is based at Cranfield University.  As part of our contribution to the EPSRC Centre in TES, last month CTL delivered an Ncompass™ 4000 to the Centre’s R&D team who are running a 3-year research project into No Fault Found (NFF).  CTL is also providing specialistadvice and assistance to the NFF research team.

The EPSRC Centre in TESis a £11.1M multi-sector National centre that was launched in 2011, with £5.7M of that funding coming from the EPSRC.  In addition to Cranfield and Durham Universities there are 4 lead industry partners – BAE SYSTEMS, Rolls Royce, Bombardier Transport and the UK MOD.  There is also a range of additional partners including Siemens, the British Standards Institute – and now Copernicus Technology Ltd!  

There are 5 headline projects that the EPSRC Centre in TES is running right now, including improving system design for whole-life cost reduction, self-healing technologies and, of course, No Fault Found (NFF).  The current scope of the NFF project is:

• To identify procedural, process and behavioural issues that need to be changed, learning from best practice in each industry. 
• To develop approaches at the board level to detect, characterize and locate NFF intermittent failures and deliver a fault localisation mechanism and demonstrator at the board and sub-system level.
• To devise strategies, methodologies and system design rules to mitigate the occurrence of intermittent failure mechanisms and to demonstrate their effectiveness in reducing the likelihood of NFF occurrences.
• To develop a multi-disciplinary approach at the System level for the effective analysis of the root causes of NFF in order to assist design activity across domains.
• To develop a handbook and a system design evaluation standard with procedures that will reduce the problem of NFF.

CTL is providing support to the EPSRC Centre in TES in a variety of ways, including the provision of an Ncompass™ 4000 Analyzer to support the project’s examination of intermittency and its relationship to NFF.  The Centre’s Ncompass is picturedon the left, along with the desktop PC to control the Analyzer.  The monitor shows the home screen of NODES™ software which is used to run testing and record and manage results and results reporting.  The small box of switches connected to the Analyzer is a simple ‘demobox’ which represents a ‘Unit Under Test’, to demonstrate the Ncompass’ ability to detect intermittent faults on all test points simultaneously and continuously.

The Ncompass was handed over to the NFF project’s research manager Dr Paul Phillips, and to his project colleague Dr Samir Khan, by CTL Technical Director Jim Cockram.  Mr Cockram said “Copernicus Technology Ltd is extremely proud to be associated with the research of the EPSRC Centre in TES, especially the opportunity to support R&D into No Fault Found in this way.  The team at Cranfield have excellent links across Academia and Industry, and so this represents an exciting opportunity for us all to make a huge difference to driving out NFF problems.  This is vital work given that NFF costs the military and civilian sectors millions every single year, so we’re delighted that Copernicus Technology Ltd is able to support this ambitious project”.

Mr Cockram is pictured here, on the left of the picture, handing over the Ncompass to Dr Phillips.  On receiving their Ncompass, Dr Phillips said "We are very excited at getting our hands on the Ncompass because, alongside our other equipment, it will be a vital tool in helping us to understand the contribution of intermittent faults to NFF problems in the design and maintenance environments.  Now that we have the Ncompass we are already looking at what kinds of equipment we will test to further the aims of our project".

The whole CTL team are immensely proud to be associated with the EPSRC Centre in TES and can’t wait to see how the NFF research progresses.  More news of that will be published on this website in due course, and the EPSRC Centre in TES will provide updates on progress at their first international conference on 5-6 Nov 2012, as well as at the next ADS MRO&L Network’s NFF Working Group on 7 Nov 2012.

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EPSRC Centre in TES website

TES Conference details

28 Aug 2012 – Copernicus Technology Ltd (CTL), Europe’s leading innovators in the field of No Fault Found and in solutions to defeat downtime, are carrying out intermittent fault detection and integrity testing on RAF Chinook helicopters to support the UK’s Ministry Of Defence (MOD) in their endeavours to improve the maintainability and availability of this vital helicopter fleet.

These test trials have already successfully demonstrated the unique capabilities of the Ncompass™ 4000 test equipment in the testing of components ranging from wiring to switch panels to circuit breakers.  The MOD is extremely pleased with the extent of the Ncompass™ test results so far and is reviewing what maintenance actions to take in light of the test findings.  In addition, Ncompass™ testing will also be carried out on other Chinook systems and components in the near future, and CTL will publish further details in due course. If you want to know more then please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.