ASTUTE ELECTRONICS

Aerospace & Defence

“The A&D sector faces multiple challenges. We have urgent operational requirements to support, not only the Ukraine conflict but a general rise in geopolitical tensions. Extending military equipment service life is critically important. Inflation is adding further pressure – driving up costs of raw materials and components and interfering with demand forecasting, planning, and supply chain management,” Mark told WNIE.

“There is never only one challenge, and there is never just one solution -- only different approaches to mitigate risk. You have to innovate.”

Astute is no stranger to innovation. From their beginnings in 1989, when Geoff Hill founded the company to assist Tier 1 A&D customers like BAE and Thales to find obsolete components, the focus was squarely on how to solve problems.

Supply Chain Solutions

Mark continues, “We take a consultative approach to our customers: analysing their supply chain, digging out the problems, and building solutions around them. For example, we devise ways to mitigate future problems by avoiding risk during the design and procurement stages.”

Part of this has been the acquisition of ISMOsys, a technology-driven enterprise that represents a range of components and systems manufacturers who can take a concept into production. The acquisition extends Astute’s capabilities for early-stage design, prototyping, and through-life support – ‘cradle to grave’ -- for A&D equipment.

Around the same time, Astute also launched SALUS, a ground-breaking asset tracking solution. Using RFID tags, this solution can accurately track the location of equipment or people to within two metres and report back their status and behaviours in real time. Since its wireless signals pass quickly and securely across great distances, there’s the possibility to track assets across different zones and buildings – across a military facility, for instance.

“With SALUS, Astute has identified and addressed a major gap in the provision of asset tracking solutions for the A&D sector. Historically, inefficient asset tracking, monitoring and recovery has resulted in billions of dollars of missing or lost equipment.”

Medical

“Medical has become an important sector for Astute. Since our involvement in the Covid-19 ventilator challenge, we’ve observed the similarities between the Defence and Medical sectors: supporting the supply chain for life-critical devices. That needs an agile dynamic partner to secure material,” says Mark.

“We’ve since expanded our involvement within the medical sector by investing and adapting, as with all of our customers. Covid accelerated the need for portable screening and early detection devices. There was an urgency to get the equipment mobile, especially for use outside hospitals in health centres, surgeries, and care homes.

“Meeting this challenge, we’ve formed a strategic alliance with medical pioneers, Level42 AI, to supply their contactless disease screening and health diagnostics equipment. Their AI-powered equipment provides early, accurate, and instantaneous detection and monitoring of infection and non-communicable illness as well as continuous vital-sign monitoring.”

The AI platform learns to distinguish “Healthy” people from “Sick” people at an individual level and mass population scale. They work contactless, through-clothes to reveal signs of the user’s current and future health, along with actionable diagnostics.

“It’s a very exciting product, not only for screening against illness, but to enhance general well-being and productivity.”

Electric Vehicles

“Electrification of transport is official government policy in the UK. Apparently, EV charge points are set to become the “next great British emblem” and will replace the iconic red telephone box!”

“As an organisation, we’re branching out into new industries to meet tomorrow’s needs. We’ve teamed up with Kayal to distribute their electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the country, in response to growing government-backed demand for EVs.

As part of the deal, Astute will offer all Kayal charging products across a range of sizes and power-grades for residential, commercial, and public use. Kayal offers a complete range of products for commercial and domestic EV charging station installations including AC, DC & portable EV charging stations, energy storage cabinets, and a full accompaniment of photovoltaic products

“Partnering with Kayal during this period - an EV revolution - is a very exciting prospect for Astute. Customers will gain access to Kayal’s full EV infrastructure building expertise. All in all, we will provide extensive value-added services to our customers.”

Astute has recently become a franchised distributor of Bren-Tronics battery and charging systems. Using a combination of off-the-shelf technology, teamed with their innovative solutions, Bren-Tronics offer an extensive collection of rechargeable and nonrechargeable batteries, and their array of chargers ranging from high rate bulk chargers through to portable lightweight chargers.