FFI at 75: Proud past - exciting future

FFI was established by Parliamentary resolution on 11 April 1946. A year later, researchers and engineers moved into the buildings abandoned by the Germans, on what were farmlands at Kjeller. Luftwaffe had their combat medical training here. The building in the photo still houses many FFI researchers, and the field behind it is still being ploughed today.

Harald Keilhau in front of FFI’s first digital computer, with 2000 vacuum tubes and 20kW heat loss. Ferranti Rapid Electronic Defence Research Institute Computer (Frederic) represented a breakthrough in researchers’ ability to solve complex mathematical problems. They had previously used electromechanical machines. Frederic was Europe’s most advanced computer. It was smuggled in as diplomatic mail to avoid additional fees.

The small detector element in the Penguin missile, that registers heat waves, had to be kept cool to avoid internal noise. The solution was to place the element in a small glass thermos. A vacuum in the thermos was necessary to avoid condensation upon cooling. Liquid nitrogen (-196°C) was used to cool the detector element. Jan Knudsen was FFI’s in-house glassblower. He created the small thermoses and solved many difficult problems.

The multiprocessor, Martinus, had 30 single processors and a miniature machine from Norsk Data that operated everything. This fast-calculating machine was intended to perform highly advanced signal processing and was placed at a site in Northern Norway. Both the hardware and software elements exceeded the system’s boundaries

During a field test on Andøya, FFI researchers direct instrumented infrared missile seekers at planes and helicopters. The plane shoots out flares resembling fireworks to try to trick the missile seekers to steer toward them instead of the plane. Researchers check their instruments to see whether or not the missile seekers have been tricked. This was an early test and not much of the equipment they had constructed was functioning as it should. Therefore, they worked day and night to make things work. Everyone was tired and engineer Egil Bernt Austrheim uses this opportunity to take a power nap, while a P-3 Orion aircraft makes a low pass above him.

Researcher Mats Øyan tests a prototype of the Ground-penetrating Radar Imager for Mars Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) on Svalbard. RIMFAX is installed on the Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in February 2021. Mars is a cold and dry planet and Svalbard is well-suited for this type of test, due to its glaciers. RIMFAX searches underground to help determine the type of geology it traverses. This may enable it to find sites on Mars where there may have been water.