10 Sep 03. BAE SYSTEMS C4ISR has agreed an Industry team that draws upon proven expertise from the UK, Europe and North America in its bid to be selected for Increment A of the UK Ministry of Defence’s FALCON information infrastructure requirement, a key further stage in creating Network Enabled Capability (NEC) for the British Armed Forces.
The team includes Thales for the transmission and security subsystems, and Cisco Systems for Internet Protocol (IP)-based networking solutions.
BAE SYSTEMS C4ISR proposes to realise the theatre communications capability requirement by the provision of FALCON installations equipped with a best-of-breed mix of radios, routers, switches, cryptos, masts, antennas and generators.
Most of the equipment would be from low-risk, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) sources, and developed to provide essential military features such as ruggedisation to meet the harsh military environment. The BAE SYSTEMS FALCON team solution also maintains future-proof features and offers value for money. The main bespoke elements are the management system and the security architecture. These will be undertaken by BAE SYSTEMS, in its role as proposed system integrator.
Paul Laity, Managing Director of BAE SYSTEMS C4ISR’s Communications & Defence Infrastructure business, said, “We understand the information requirements of the battlespace and possess the integration skills needed to provide a value-for-money, low-risk FALCON solution based on COTS products in a flexible systems architecture. We propose to use our Battlespace Management Evaluation Centre for systems analysis to support our bid. Our knowledge of, and involvement in, parallel US requirements such as WIN-T will enable us to optimise interoperability and system effectiveness. The BAE SYSTEMS FALCON industry team announced today adds further strengths to our proposal.”
Thales Communications UK has been selected after an international competition to supply the proposed transmission subsystem for the BAE SYSTEMS solution. This is based on the Thales TRC 4000 family of line-of-sight (LOS) radios, selected by both the French and Swiss Armed Forces. “The TRC 4000 offers an excellent combination of range, bandwidth and functionality, together with impressive physical and electronic resilience,” said John Collins, Managing Director of Thales Communications UK.
Thales e-Security of Aylesbury has been selected to deliver an innovative, efficient and cost-effective security subsystem again based on COTS products. This will ensure commonality of components across the system to reduce overall costs, bring FALCON into service quickly and future-proof the solution by ensuring that technological advancements made within the commercial security sector are incorporated within the new system.
Partnership in depth
Flagship Training Limited, Portsmouth (a BAE SYSTEMS joint venture) is to offer its pedigree of meeting defence training needs into the FALCON system. It has partnered with the customer community to undertake a Training Needs Analysis to provide a comprehensive baseline for development of training packages.
BAE SYSTEMS Customer Solutions & Support (CS&S) is to supply its wide experience across all sectors of the UK MoD’s equipment support domain into the proposed Integrated Logistic Support process for the FALCON bid, bringing its expertise to bear to optimise the design of an efficient and cost-effective FALCON support system.
Dytecna, Chessington, is to be responsible within the BAE SYSTEMS team for the design and manufacture of the communication shelters hosted on the FALCON vehicles.