24 Jul 02. The Transatlantic Industrial Proposed Solution (TIPS), comprised of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), Galileo Avionica of Italy and Northrop Grumman ISS International, Inc., of the U.S., announces the endorsement of the TIPS proposal by Belgium’s BARCO, General Dynamics, Canada, Terma of Denmark and Norway’s Konsberg as the NATO owned-and-operated Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) solution. The U.K.’s contribution is believed to be under consideration although NATO supreme George Robertson has assured his allies in NATO of full co-operation. The U.K.’s ASTOR aircraft are believed to have been pledged to support NATO AGS in exchange for access to information from the AGS and QinetiQ are believed to be working on the ground interoperability and data link issues.

The TIPS system of systems approach centres on a government-to-government, cooperatively developed, active electronically scanned array radar sensor, integrated onboard a midsize jet aircraft. This transatlantic radar solution would be a watershed event in industrial cooperation and technology sharing, capitalizing on technology developed in the U.S. and Europe.

TIPS is an industry-generated response to provide NATO with a minimum essential owned-and-operated AGS core capability meeting NATO’s Staff Requirement (NSR), consistent with North Atlantic Council (NAC) and Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) decisions and supporting NATO’s transformational capabilities objectives. AGS will be able to provide situational knowledge through a NATO-shared common ground picture that will be available to NATO decision makers. By being able to support a 2010 in-service date, TIPS will provide the Alliance with a key building block that provides a critical capability designed to meet their Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Command and Control needs.