The contracts of 17 R&D projects initiated by the Presidency of Defence Industries (SSB) were signed at a ceremony held at the SSB Headquarters in Ankara. SSB President Prof. İsmail DEMİR as well as representatives from the Ministry of National Defence, Turkish Armed Forces, Gendarmerie General Command, universities, research centers, public and private sectors participated in the R&D Signature Ceremony.

With a 1.8% R&D share target as part of Turkey's 2023 goals, while 29 projects were initiated as per the directive of the Presidency of Defence Industries in five panels held so far within the scope of SSB R&D Panels launched on December 22, 2016, it was also decided upon to make a call for a wider scope in 16 areas.  The 17 R&D projects signed on January 13, 2020, include:

Development of Alumina Powder for Use in Ceramic Armors (Alumina)

Development of Aluminum Casting Processes for Aviation (Aslan) 

Nano-Additive Prepreg Material Development (Atlas)

Development of Boron Carbide Silicon Carbide Light Ceramic Armor Materials (Borkar) 

Development of Carbon and Glass Fiber Epoxy Prepreg (Kartal) 

Customization of Flight Simulator Trainings by Measuring Cognitive Workload (Genıus) 

Classification and Identification of Surface Targets Detected with Radar (Görü)

Artificial Intelligence Commander Assistant Developing Course of Action (Hamle)

Artificial Intelligence Fire Control and Autonomous Driving for Land Vehicles (Karagöz)

Global Positioning System Independent Autonomous Navigation System Development (Kerkes)

Social Media Analysis Performance Development (Pergel)

Autonomous Discovery, Guidance and Navigation with Co-Robots (Robo-Tim)

Data Tagging Platform (Veri Kovanı)

Innovative Software Competing (Y³) 2nd Term

Development of New Generation Protective Textile Technology against Chemical and Biological War Agents (Kafes)

Energetic Material Development with Cocrystallization Method (Kokristal)

Microbolometer Infrared Detector Kit Development (Mikrobolometre)

While the contractor model in the signed projects is based on the cooperation between SME-Industry-University, there will be a total of 21 contractors or subcontractors in the projects, particularly the universities, institutes and SMEs.

Substantial Capabilities will be Acquired with 17 R&D Projects

In order to minimize our country’s foreign dependency, within the scope of the ALUMINA Project, domestic and national Alumina powder, equivalent to Alumina powders currently supplied from abroad, will be developed for ballistic requirements. Again, with the objective of minimizing  foreign dependency, the KARTAL project aims to develop prepreg slit tape materials which are reinforced with epoxy resin impregnated glass fiber and carbon fiber, which are subjected to export license.

With the ASLAN Project, the aim is to develop the Aluminum block casting and manufacturing processes of the TEI-PD170 piston engine used in unmanned aerial vehicles. Within the scope of the ATLAS Project, the aim is to to develop an epoxy resin prepreg material cured at 120 ° C, reinforced with nano additives that provide weight gain by improving the strength, toughness and impact resistance of the material it is integrated with. The BORKAR Project aims to improve the process conditions for producing low density, cost effective and high ballistic performance Boron Carbide - Silicon Carbide composite armors for use in armor applications.

By integrating the methods to be developed under the GENIUS Project into simulators, the aim is to create an infrastructure that will provide an advantage in the design of the next generation of human-machine interfaces with the knowledge, experience and technology infrastructure that will enable the development of new generation user-centered flight simulators based on neurophysiology. The HAMLE Project aims to develop an Artificial Intelligence Commander Assistant who, via the “Reinforcement Learning” method, can learn warfare games, assume an instructor role and provide decision support by determining and evaluating a course of action.

With the GÖRÜ Project, the aim is to develop an algorithm for the detection, classification and identification of surface targets from SAR sensors with artificial intelligence, and the KARAGÖZ Project aims to provide vehicles with artificial intelligence assisted fire control and autonomous driving capabilities.

The KERKES Project aims to provide image-supported autonomous navigation capability to UAV Platforms in combat environments where GPS information is not available or where GPS is jammed/deceived. The PERGEL Project will be carried out for high performance algorithms with deep learning methods on open source data.

With the VERİ KOVANI Platform, the aim is  to obtain the tagged data sets needed in projects involving artificial intelligence as crowdsourced, while with the ROBOTIM Project, the aim is  to develop cognitive swarm capability for UAVs and ULVs to perform coordinated tasks. In this regard, the Innovative Software Competition (Y³) 2nd Term Project will also be carried out with the aim of competing today's software in innovative technologies and promoting the software of the future.

Within the scope of the KAFES Project, the plan is  to develop CBRN Protective Textile with national facilities, which has superior protection and comfort features against chemical and biological warfare agents by using Metal Organic Frameworks (MOF) and Membrane technologies. The KOKRİSTAL Project aims to introduce new generation energetic materials, with high detonation speed and high insensitivity, to the Turkish Defence Industry which will give the country ownership of new generation energetic material technologies. Within the scope of the Microbolometer Project, the objective is to develop of 12 micrometer microbolometer type infrared detector sets and subsystems for thermal weapon sight and reconnaissance surveillance systems  with national facilities.