The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (''Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt'' – ''FFI'') is a

research institute A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often i ...

that conducts research and development on behalf of the

Norwegian Armed Forces The Norwegian Armed Forces ( no, Forsvaret, , The Defence) is the military organization responsible for the defence of Norway. It consists of five branches, the Norwegian Army, the Royal Norwegian Navy, which includes the Coast Guard, the Royal ...

and provides expert advice to political and military defence leaders. In particular, its task is to keep track of advances in the fields of science and

military technology Military technology is the application of technology for use in warfare. It comprises the kinds of technology that are distinctly military in nature and not civilian in application, usually because they lack useful or legal civilian application ...

which might affect the assumptions on which Norwegian security policy and/or defence planning is based.

History

The institute was established in 1946. Its roots lie in Norwegian participation in British scientific research during the Second World War (see

Allied technological cooperation during World War II The Allies of World War II cooperated extensively in the development and manufacture of new and existing technologies to support military operations and intelligence gathering during the Second World War. There are various ways in which the allie ...

). Many Norwegian scientists and technologists took part during the period when Germany occupied Norway between 1940 and 1945. FFI has 714 employees, of which approximately 360 are scientists and engineers. The main location of the institute is at

Kjeller Kjeller is a village located near Lillestrøm in the municipality of Lillestrøm, Norway. It is located 25 kilometers north-east of Oslo. Name The Norse form of the name was probably ''Tjaldir''. This is then the plural of ''tjald'' n ' tent' ...

near

Lillestrøm Lillestrøm is a municipality in Viken county. It is located in the traditional district of Romerike. With a population of 85,757 inhabitants, it is the fourth most populated municipality in Viken. It was founded on 1 January 2020 as a merger b ...

, 20 km east of the country's capital

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. The Kjeller area is a hub of research activity in south eastern Norway, with a total of some 2,400 people working at a variety of research establishments, colleges and university departments. Part of the institute's Maritime Systems Division is situated in the coastal city of

Horten is a town and municipality in Vestfold in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway—located along the Oslofjord. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Horten. The municipality also includes the town of Åsgårdstrand a ...

, southwest of Oslo on the western side of the

Oslofjord The Oslofjord (, ; en, Oslo Fjord) is an inlet in the south-east of Norway, stretching from an imaginary line between the and lighthouses and down to in the south to Oslo in the north. It is part of the Skagerrak strait, connecting the N ...

. Horten is known as the country's

MEMS Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), also written as micro-electro-mechanical systems (or microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems) and the related micromechatronics and microsystems constitute the technology of microscopic devices, ...

capital, and is also a center of electronics and naval research and industry. In way of concrete technology products, FFI is known for, among other things: *The development of a range of computers in the early 1960s which eventually led to the creation of

Norsk Data Norsk Data was a minicomputer manufacturer located in Oslo, Norway. Existing from 1967 to 1998, it had its most active period from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. At the company's peak in 1987, it was the second largest company in Norway and em ...

as well as Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk (KV)'s Computer Division: LYDIA (1962); SAM; SAM2. *Beginning in 1973, NDRE was an early researcher of

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the su ...

in Europe, based on a connection to SATNET through NORSAR, along with Peter Kirstein's group at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

and RSRE in Britain. *The development, with KV's Division of Guided Weapons, of the

Penguin Penguins (order Sphenisciformes , family Spheniscidae ) are a group of aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adap ...

anti-ship missile *The development of the Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX), an instrument aboard the

Mars 2020 Mars 2020 is a Mars rover mission forming part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program that includes the rover '' Perseverance'', the small robotic, coaxial helicopter '' Ingenuity'', and associated delivery vehicles. Mars 2020 was launched from ...

Perseverance Perseverance may refer to: Behaviour * Psychological resilience * Perseverance of the saints, a Protestant Christian teaching * Assurance (theology) Geography * Perseverance, Queensland, a locality in Australia * Perseverance Island, Seychelles ...

rover that is a ground-penetrating radar designed to provide centimeter-scale resolution of the geologic structure of the planet subsurface.

Researchers

Brynjar Lia Brynjar Lia (born 14 July 1966) is a Norwegian historian and professor of Middle East Studies at Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. He is also an adjunct research professor at the Norwegian Defence Rese ...

Torleiv Maseng Torleiv Maseng (born 1946) is a prominent Norwegian engineer, who made some contribution to the Global System for Mobile Communications project. His work included the standard use of channel estimation and the combination of equalization, error c ...

Thomas Hegghammer The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (''Forsvarets forskningsinstitutt'' – ''FFI'') is a research institute that conducts research and development on behalf of the Norwegian Armed Forces and provides expert advice to political and mi ...

Svein-Erik Hamran Svein-Erik Hamran (born 1960) is a Norwegian professor in radar remote sensing at the University of Oslo. He led the development of the Radar Imager for Mars' subsurface experiment (RIMFAX) for the Mars rover Perservance as Principal Investi ...

Former researchers

* Fredrik Møller *

John Kristen Skogan John Kristen Skogan (born 1942) is a Norwegian political scientist and politician for the Conservative Party. He graduated from the University of Oslo with the mag.art. degree (PhD equivalent) in 1971. He was a research assistant at the Norwegia ...

Pål Spilling Pål Spilling (October 29, 1934 – January 16, 2018) was a Norwegian Internet pioneer and professor at the University of Oslo and the UNIK Graduate Center at Kjeller in Norway. He obtained his cand.real. degree in physics from the University of ...

References

External links

* * {{authority control

Defence Research Establishment {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 The Defence Research Establishments were a number of separate UK Ministry of Defence Research Establishments, dating back to World War II, World War I, or even earlier. Each establishment had its own head; known as t ...

Organisations based in Skedsmo Government agencies established in 1946 1946 establishments in Norway Military research of Norway

History

Researchers

Former researchers

See also

References

External links