Ploughshare is owned by the UK Secretary of State for Defence and focuses on commercializing intellectual property from the Ministry of Defence. They have licensed over 110 technologies, spun out 11 companies, and helped create over 550 jobs in the UK. Their activities include licensing IP, providing commercialization services, and spinning out companies. Examples provided include spin-outs in areas like diagnostics, coatings, and instrumentation, as well as licenses for technologies in human identification, electro-optics, armor, radar, sonar, and cyber defense.

2. Agenda
Who are Ploughshare?
•What do we do?
•Spin-outs
•License Examples
•What do others have to say?
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3. Who are
Ploughshare?
Ploughshare is wholly owned by the
Secretary of State for Defence
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4. Where does Ploughshare fit?
Industry
Suppliers
Intellectual Property Creation and Transfer
Centre for
Defence
Enterprise
Industry
Customers
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5. What does
Ploughshare
do?

6. New technologies. New realities
Benefit humanity
Innovative technology applications can
be used to improve people’s lives
Drive economic growth
Sharing IP enables companies to
succeed, employ, and generate wealth
and economic growth
Raise financial returns
The revenues we earn enable future
Government investment in technology
Bolster UK defence
Collaborating with suppliers supports
UK defence and security, enhancing
COTS products
Harnessing Innovation
for a better world
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7. What does Ploughshare do?
Ploughshare are experts in:
• Licensing IP
• 110 MOD technologies commercialised through 50 current
licenses/commercial arrangements
• Commercialisation services
• 330 cases reviewed (2014)
• Spin-outs /Joint ventures – 11 Spin outs in total;
• 7 active, 2 sales, 2 wound-up
Complementary activities for Dstl:
• Supporting creativity through IP pipeline development
• Rewarding inventors
• Controlling IP costs
• Longer term: Off-the-shelf (COTS) opportunities for MOD
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8. Benefits to the UK economy
Dstl commissioned SQW Economic Consultancy study into non-financial benefits of Ploughshare.
Creation of 550 jobs to date in the UK so far
• £47 million in exports, plus a further £184 million by 2018/19
• Over £65 million GVA, plus a further £126 million by 2018/19
• Spin-outs attracted £130 million investment (public/private sector)
• Licensees £30M in R&D
Plus notable wider benefits for both the civilian and defence markets
• MOD access to new defence technologies and capabilities from UK firms
• First response and emergency services benefit from new technologies
• New health and well-being products for defence and civilian markets
Plus a range of benefits to Dstl scientists
• Scientists are more likely to pursue commercialisation activities in the future
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9. Spin-outs
Examples

10. Spin-Outs
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Enigma Diagnostics
Rapid Detection & Identification of
bacteria and viruses at the point of
sampling
Applications:
• Biothreat
• Veterinary
• Point of care diagnostic
www.enigmadiagnostics.com

11. Spin-Outs
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P2i
Plasma Surface Coating Process
Applications:
• Electronics
• Lifestyle clothing and footwear
• Bio-consumables
• Military
www.p2ilabs.com

12. Spin-Outs
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ProKyma technologies Ltd.
Biological cell collection/analysis
instrumentation
Applications:
• In Vitro Diagnostics
• Life Sciences Research
www.prokyma.com

13. Spin-Outs
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Claresys Ltd
Optical Innovation
Applications:
• Surveillance
• Industrial Monitoring
www.claresys.com

14. Spin-Outs
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Subsea Asset Location Technology
(SALT) Ltd
Passive Underwater Beacons to allow easier
detection by SONAR
Applications:
• Fishing/Aquaculture
• Oil/Gas
• Utilities i.e Subsea power/telephone lines
• General marine (civil and military)
navigation
www.cesalt.com

15. Spin-Outs
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ESROE
Electronic Surveillance and Support software
solutions
Applications:
• Cutting edge information processing solutions
for Electronic Warfare systems
• World’s only Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS)
software for real-time identification of radar
signatures
• From armoured vehicles and UAVs to large
multi-role warships and surveillance aircraft
www.esroe.com

16. Licenses
Examples

17. Human
Identification
Speaker Recognition
Video Face Recognition

18. Speaker Recognition
Noise Adaptive Feature Matching (NAFM)
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Benefits
• Enrolment data could be noisy –
NAFM can adjust to/from any SNR.
• Test speech does not require separate
noise sample in the test data – NAFM
can model speech data and noise
data simultaneously.
Current Status
• Patent applied for 21st November
2012. Currently at PCT stage.
• The method is a software algorithm
implemented in Mat lab.
• Low TRL (TRL 2) and needs proving
for speaker recognition applications.
• Method shows promise but further
development essential.

19. Video Face Recognition
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Problem:
Improving the performance of existing
video face recognition technologies
Solution:
• Considers more than one frame at
once.
• Exploiting techniques used by COTS
products to produce an improved
confidence match score.
• Useful for multiple faces / crowded
scenes.
• Works well with low quality and
challenging
video imagery.
• Easy to integrate with existing software
products from major vendors.

20. Electro Optics
Optically Addressable
Light Valve
EOPM

21. Optically Addressed Light Valve
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Problem:
Protection from dazzle from
sunlight, lasers, arc welders etc.
for equipment and personnel
Solution:
Liquid crystal cell & photoconductive
material
•Light can be limited or filtered to protect
sensors or maintain vision
•Protection of CCTV/Surveillance cameras
and equipment
Video of OALV in action

22. Defence &
Security
Armour
Radar
Sonar
Tent door system

23. Super Bainite Steel
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Solution:
High Hardness Armoured Steel
Development of new secondary
hardening process
• Lower weight
• Easier machining/shaping than
conventional armoured steel
• Production Assessment conducted
with Tata (260 Tonnes)
• Processing Licensees now being
sought
Licensed to
Problem:
No UK onshore production capability
for armour steel

24. Ceramic Armour
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Requirement:
Need lighter weight armour
Multi-round, co-incident hits – limited
protection
Solution:
Ceramic armour panel element
 Interlocking lugs dissipate energy to
provide improved ballistics protection
 Affords same protection for less
weight or increased protection for
same weight
Licence agreed in 2006 with an SME defence
company with a royalty payable on non-MOD sales

25. Behind Armour Blunt Trauma Test Rig
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Solution:
‘Benchmark’ test rig for body armour
development
 Measurement of rate of change
not just depression
 Non-contact measurement
system avoids potential damage to
test equipment
 Potential to provide benchmark
measurement system for testing
various systems
Licensed to
Requirement:
Body Armour Development

26. Digital Radar Electronic Support
Measures
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Requirement:
Maintaining the advantage in
awareness capability
Solution:
Full digital radar
• Greater accuracy and improved
sensitivity
• Increased quality of information
• Improved through life costs
• Potential to develop in areas beyond
Naval
Licensed to

27. Audio Visual Acoustic Detection
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Problem:
Assisting passive sonar operators with
tools to aid interpretation of signals
Solution:
Simplifies passive sonar detection by
providing sonar operators with rapid visual
representation of audio data
Enables classification of the sound into
one of the three categories;
• Mechanical
• Biological
• Environmental
Software implementation would sit in
existing sonar system hardware

28. Tent door system
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Problem:
CBRN tent doors are either zips or
bulky fixed mechanisms.
Solution:
Provides and airtight seal to prevent
ingress of hazardous materials.
Self opening and closing door (can be
operate manually.
Allows synchronisation of air-lock inner
and outer door opening/closing.
Can be rolled up and detached for ease of
storage and transport.
Light-weight and easy to lift and handle.

29. Cyber
CDCAT

30. Cyber Defence Capability Assessment
Tool (CDCAT)
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Licensed to
• Risk mitigation framework
• Model and methodology to quantify cyber
defence capability
• Uses military doctrine joined to commercial
service management
• Identifies:
• best practice - industry standards
• weaknesses in a networked system
• what is needed to improve IA
• Enables cyber defence auditing
• Offers practical business solutions, e.g.
investment appraisal information
• Enables strategy development, policy,
operations, risk management, programme
delivery and capability planning
• Aims to offer a best practice approach to
Government and Industry

31. Detection &
Diagnostics
Sampling Device
Antibodies

32. Sample Device With Lateral Flow Strips
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Problem:
A need to rapidly identify multiple
potential materials in a single sample
Solution:
• An integrated sampling device that
can be used to swab a surface and
collect a sample, allowing
immediate identification.
• The device can incorporate up to
8 separate lateral flow diagnostic
strips, which can be selected to
suit the situation.
• Robust and can be used when
wearing gloves
• Self-contained, no added reagents
or power source
• Sample is retained for further
testing or audit
Licensed to

33. Antibodies and reagents
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Problem:
A need to develop diagnostic tests for
biological and explosive targets
Solution:
• Dstl have developed 100’s of
antibody cell lines and reagents
that have been made available for
licence
• Biological threat
• Explosives
• Ebola virus diagnostics
Licensed to

34. What do others
have to say?

35. Thank You
Any questions?
Contact:
info@ploughshareinnovations.com
Tel. 01794 301052
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