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Doctoral thesis on military technology

Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu
Publication date 12.4.2018 10.17
Press release

Kent Andersson's doctoral thesis “On military utility of spectral design in signature management: a systems approach” will be examined for the Doctor of Military Sciences degree in Stockholm on 13th of April 2018.

The thesis defence will be held in cooperation between Finnish National Defence University and Swedish Defence University. Jouko Vankka from Finnish National Defence University will act as the thesis supervisor in the thesis defence held in Stockholm. Andersson will have two opponents, professor Jari Hartikainen from the Finnish Defence Research Agency and professor Harold Lawson (emeritus) from Linköping University, Sweden.

Kent Andersson from Sweden has worked as an officer at the Swedish Armed Forces. He has a licentiate degree in technology on the subject of material optics.

Andersson's doctoral thesis addresses the challenge to military decision-makers, faced with inherent uncertainties concerning the future and with limited resources, of how to choose among alternative capabilities, technologies or equipment. The specific case of interest is how to assess the military utility of developments in advanced materials for signature management applications, also known as camouflage.

There is an increasing interest in using this kind of technology to increase survivability on future battlefields, Andersson says. "In the last decade threat sensors seem to have gained the edge". However, researchers in the field find it difficult to communicate relevant basis for decisions. How good does signature reducing technology have to be?

In order to find and analyze patterns in relevant decision situations and in order to propose contributions to a framework for future decision-making Andersson had to use methods from several disciplines in the military sciences domain. The thesis is really a synthesis from four separate studies, Andersson says. The major contribution to theory is a proposed concept called Military Utility, capturing how to communicate the utility of technical systems, or technology, in a military context. Another result is the so-called Ladder-model, a template specifically for how to assess the military utility of the so-called spectral design technology described above.

Kent Andersson´s thesis can be downloaded from the Doria publication archive. The printed version is also available from the library of National Defence University.

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