During Euronaval 2022, an International Naval Defense Exhibition, German company Rohde & Schwarz and Airbus Defence and Security from France announced an expansion of their strategic cooperation to bring integrated sixth-generation solutions to navies.
German company Rohde & Schwarz and Airbus Defence and Security from France announced an expansion of their strategic cooperation to bring integrated sixth-generation solutions to navies. (Picture source Airbus)
The accelerated deployment of innovative tech shall deliver modernized battlefield networks for the future. An expanded set of high data rate communications, which is at the core, will allow the navy to instantaneously share the significantly increasing, collected intelligence data within these networks.
“Sixth generation defense technologies will revolutionize military, secure communications and cooperative intelligence. This will enable the navy to better exploit the huge amount of information collected and distributed,” explains Hansjörg Herrbold, Vice President Secure Communications, Rohde & Schwarz. “Based on the innovation strength and the numerous mission proven technology, Airbus and Rohde & Schwarz are at the forefront to develop tech for information dominance in the naval environment.”
“Over the last few years, we have worked extremely well with Rohde & Schwarz, integrating their latest communications technology into the naval operative network,” Thierry Becker, Vice President Secure Communications EMEA, Airbus Defence and Space continues. “Today’s forces require the strategic edge by ease-of-use equipment, which is critical for information and decision dominance. For this, we look forward to continuing our cooperation with Rohde & Schwarz, tackling the next generation together.”
In March 2019, the French defence procurement agency DGA (Direction générale de l’armement) had already awarded the RIFAN 2.1 contract to an industrial consortium headed by Airbus and also comprising the Naval Group and Rohde & Schwarz.
The contract covers work to maintain and adapt the existing IP network for the French naval forces, RIFAN 2 (Réseau IP de la Force Aéronavale étape 2), to the needs of the Navy in the coming years, to integrate new ships and remedy hardware and software obsolescence.
It will also enable the future front-line frigates of the FDI (‘frégates de défense et d’intervention’) programme and the future replenishment tankers of the BRF (‘bâtiment ravitailleur de forces’) programme to be integrated into the RIFAN 2 network. The network adaptations will involve both its central architecture and an update of the cybersecurity incident monitoring and detection system.
