The French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis

Fundamental Research on Defence and Security

The French-German Research Institute is a bi-national institution established by the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the basis of a treaty signed in 1958.

The original mission of the ISL was: "Research, scientific studies and basic predevelopment in the armament domain".

The classical working areas of ISL include: laser-matter interaction, laser development, detonics, perforation, protection, ballistics, the environment and protection of the soldier, acoustics, power electronics, high power microwaves, aerodynamics and flight mechanics, optronics, sensors.

In a network of partnerships with other European institutes, technical and scientific services and industrial partners, the ISL offers its scientific and technological competence to the Ministries of Defence for the development of new technologies to assure the current and future capabilities of the armed forces.

The technological concept of the BMVg and the corresponding document of the DGA in France have led the ISL to focus its capabilities into key multidisciplinary projects; i.e. threat characterisation and protection against improvised explosive devices (IED), nanomaterials, lightweight medium caliber weapons, guided supersonic projectiles.

The last two topics are studies on partial concepts of generic systems.

Recently the ISL has reinforced its activities on problems of civil security and counter-measures against terrorism encountered both at home and during overseas military operations.

The following ISL research activities have proven their relevance:

• Area surveillance, sensor network technology, active imaging, image processing, reconnaissance in urban environments;
• Communication in noisy environments, sniper detection
• Explosive detection, synthesis of material for detection, theory and experiments on nuclear quadrupole resonance detectors
• High power microwaves for the ignition of explosive devices
• Fundamental research on IED threats and the development of protective measures:
• IED with thermobaric effects (thermal pulse, enhanced blast waves), with explosively driven fragments and explosively formed projectiles;
• Reference charges in open and enclosed scenarios,threat and risk assessments;
• Protection of critical infrastructure;
• Target vulnerability studies.

The relationships to universities, necessary for any research activities, are established by cooperation agreements, by lectures of ISL members at universities and engineering schools as well as by supervision of approximately 20 PhD students at ISL in 2007.

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