09 Sep 03. TRL Technology announced at DSEi that it had been awarded a contract worth £1m+ to provide turnkey satellite tracking solution for military personnel, intended to help save lives. The contract involves the development of a rugged customised system for use in remote field locations, enabling troops’ positions to be tracked accurately and reliably by satellite at pre-determined time intervals.
09 Sep 03. In addition to its Slovenian announcement (See DSEI NEWS DAY 1), Harris also announced the inking of a $10 million deal for more of its Falcon II radios, this time to Turkey. The delivery will include the Harris RF-5800H-MP radios an advanced, secure voice and data high-frequency (HF)-SSB/VHF-FM manpack radio. “We are pleased that a key NATO member such as Turkey has become the latest country to adopt the Falcon II HF radio,” commented Dana Mehnert, vice president, international operations, Harris RF Communications Division. The variant transmits data at 9.6Kbps using selectable ARQ mode reduce transmission time and uses STANAG 4538 automatic link establishment (ALE) in accordance with MIL-STD 188-110B. The data capability and optional network management features of the RF-5800H-MP utilize industry standard IP-based protocols to provide fast, simple, and direct communications, and permit easy setup and maintenance of tactical networks.
09 Sep 03. Australian company WiNRADIO showed their G318/328 family of software radios for the first time at DSEI. Work was complete on the 9-180MHz receivers, designed to provide a solution for high performance requirements for frequency monitoring and surveillance, only two months ago. Based on a half size PCI card with dimensions of 105x195mm is said by the company to be the world’s first short waved receiver based on this format. It has an estimated cost of $3000. The G318 has been sold to the Department of Defense and the G328 to an unnamed customer. A second new product shown by the company is the WD3000 Direction Finding System, which uses the proven pseudo-Doppler affect and signal processing to achieve its capability. Depending on users requirements the receiver covers the 0.15 to 4000MHz range Information is shown using a ruggedised PC with a 15″ TFT LCD display. Set up time is estimated at less than five minutes. The cost of the systems is $10,000 for the antenna and $25,000 for the PC.
09 Sep 03. US company Thermonanalytics has established a German based limited liability company to market its PRISM code to measure IR and Thermal signatures of military platforms. Originally developed for the Pentagon and delivered in 1999 the software has been cleared for export to NATO members. Currently seven European militaries currently use 53 licenses. Previous a local company was contracted as a distributor until the new company was established earlier this year. The code can be used within a secure test environment or in a natural environment, better sued to support testing such as high altitude UAVs and the solar influence. A typical user would combine the Thermal and IR data with Computer Fluid Dynamics software
09 Sep 03. Speaking to Battlespace at DSEI, Steve Turner, Thales’ FIST Project Director outlined the next steps for the programme. FIST’s V1 trials are due to be held in June 2004, which will define the system architecture and use a number of system to test this. The subsequent V2 trials, due in July-August 2005 will provide a firmer look at the equipment to be ultimately included in the FIST 1 system. He explained that no decisions had been made yet in any area of equipment while and time had been spent working with the MoD and DPA since the FIST award earlier this year ensuring that a common understanding of the system requirements had been established between the contractor and customer. He said he expected a Technical Assistance Agreement between FIST and the US Land Warrior and Objective Force Warrior to be established in the next few months with an MoU in