Since the opening of The Portal in July 2007, QinetiQ and Boeing have conducted a broad spectrum of training events, demonstrations, and classified experiments in support of numerous UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and industry programmes. The Portal has successfully supported more than 130 separate activities ranging in scale from half-day workshops to multi-week experiments, and has met all requirements.

The state-of-the-art decision support capability at QinetiQ's Cody Technology Park site in Farnborough, England is enabling customers to explore and understand implications of proposed network-enabled systems in a real time, dynamic environment featuring the latest in modelling, simulation, analysis and experimentation techniques and tools.

QinetiQ and Boeing have undertaken several joint activities but most projects have been in support of individually managed programmes. Customers have been testing logistical requirements across a wide range of existing and future operational settings and against a variety of threats.

Experiment designers create enhanced environments with multiple concurrent activities to compare the effectiveness and survivability of competing systems, test future scenarios and assess potential solutions before they are delivered to the front line. Operators have also addressed the interoperability issues of coalition war fighting through combinations of live assets and virtual simulations.

"Partnering with Boeing on this exciting venture continues to provide value for us collectively, individually and for the growing and quite diverse range of customers that are now benefiting from the capabilities The Portal provides," said Graham Love, QinetiQ's Chief Executive.

"The Portal allows customers to explore many alternative scenarios in a fully immersive and interactive environment, and to see the effects of introducing new technologies to support current systems and platforms in order to optimise design concepts and performance."

"The Portal enables us to support our customer's decision-making processes by helping them to explore their options, evaluate alternative solutions, minimise risk, and reduce cost and development time," added Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Advanced Systems.