By D. Balaji, IANS,
Berlin : European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company NV (EADS) has signed licensing contracts with six
aerospace firms to develop military aircraft systems using its technologies, a company official said Thursday.
“As a global leader in aerospace and defence, we have technologies that can help our licensing partners maintain their competitive edge in a challenging business world,” EADS (defence and systems) Chief Technical Officer Jean Botti told reporters at the Berlin air show (ILA 2010) here.
The contracts worth euro 2.5 million were signed by Botti with the executives of Diamond Aircraft Industries (Austria), Embvue (Canada), Lufthansa Technik (Germany), MT Aerospace (Germany), RAFI (Germany) and TTTech (Austria).
“The firms will develop processes to produce composite and metallic parts, new applications for an advanced avionics data network, aircraft cabin interiors and in-flight entertainment systems and engage in developing inertial sensors and navigation systems for advanced military aircraft,” Botti said.
EADS technologies are backed by the extensive resources of its engineering development, production and operational activities.
“For instance, the contact with Diamond enables us to utilise our patented vacuum assisted process (VAP) in the production of general aviation and person jet aircraft,” Botti said.
The process allows composite structures, including sub-systems to be manufactured without the use of traditional autoclaves and provides high quality parts.
The VAP technology has been developed by EADS military air systems in collaboration with Premium Aerotec.
Ebuve and TTTech has licensed the Ethernet-based avionics full-duplex technology from the global aerospace giant Airbus Industrie at Toulouse in France.
The consortium earlier licensed its technology contracts valued at euro 10 million with some of its vendors for developing aircraft systems.
The Netherlands-based euro 43-billion EADS was created in 2000 by merging Aerospatiale Matra of France, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG (DASA) of Germany (excluding the MTU engine business) and Construcciones Aeronauticas SA (CASA) of Spain.