Pearson Engineering

Pearson Engineering makes the equipment that gets bolted onto the front of an armoured vehicle so it can deal with mines, obstacles and earth. Alan Reece, a Newcastle University agricultural engineering academic, founded the company in 1985, and it has spent forty years supplying counter-mine and combat engineering equipment to the British Army and its allies. More than 3,000 mine ploughs have gone out of Newcastle, and the company serves armed forces in over 35 countries with a workforce of more than 300 people across two brands.

The minefield breaching line is the oldest. The Full Width Mine Plough clears the whole vehicle width, the Track Width Mine Plough clears a lane for the tracks to follow, and the Self-Protection Mine Plough and VECTOR give wheeled and lighter vehicles the same self-protection capability. Route proving is handled by a family of mine rollers, including the Self Protection Combat Roller, the Light Weight Mine Roller, the Light Weight Proofing Roller, the Super Light Weight Roller and SPARK II, which detonate pressure fused devices ahead of the vehicle. The Surface Clearance Device deals with scatterable and surface laid mines and can be fitted as a V blade for routes or an angled blade for areas. Magnetic signature duplication equipment defeats magnetically influenced fuzes.

The earth moving and mobility equipment is a separate strand. The Combat Dozer Blade lets a vehicle push obstacles and spoil without changing role, the Excavator Arm covers digging, demolition and lifting, and the Earth Anchor Blade holds a vehicle static during recovery operations. The Bridge Launch Mechanism allows bridging without dedicating a vehicle to that task alone. The Obstacle Marker System pneumatically fires marker poles into a range of surfaces at timed or measured intervals so that a breached lane can be marked as it is cleared. PEROCC packages interchangeable counter-IED tools into a route opening and clearing capability, and SLICE is the modular front end equipment set for main battle tanks. All of it is attached through vehicle integration kits designed for quick interchange in the field.

Robotics is the newer direction. BEACON is the remote control system that lets an existing crewed vehicle operate uncrewed, Threat-Sense is the autonomous detection capability, and RCV-Pioneer is the robotic combat vehicle engineering platform, fielded with urban obstacle clearance and minefield breaching mission payloads.

The fourth part of the business is manufacturing for other people's programmes. From Armstrong Works on Scotswood Road, a self-contained and secure armoured vehicle facility, Pearson runs manufacturing, assembly, integration and test services covering vehicle build, defensive structures, programme management, test and acceptance and through-life support. Named work includes turret structures for the Challenger 3 main battle tank upgrade, armour pack components for AJAX, mission module work for Boxer, and structures for the Dry Support Bridge.

Ownership passed out of the Reece family in 2022. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems completed a 100 percent acquisition of Pearson Engineering and its subsidiary Responsive Engineering on 28 September 2022, giving the Israeli group a direct manufacturing base in the United Kingdom rather than a partnership with a British prime.