Recherche

The resulting Surface Radar organisation is customer-focused and comprises three main departments: both naval and ground-based radar product line utilising the concept of a new transverse technical "platform" for all radar developments and upgrades. The latter coordinates the standardisation of interfaces that now cover all new radar products from the business unit. This provides a generic design base with which to build new products, borrowing from developments in both the naval and ground domains without reinventing the wheel.

Today, Thales is able to build cheaper by using new technology and processes. For customers, cost often becomes the deciding factor in acquisition; industry has to be responsive to this.

Military forces face a wide spectrum of new threats in an increasingly unpredictable environment while at the same time being told they have less money to spend. Many countries are facing up to the challenge of operating in littoral waters, infamous as difficult areas for surveillance due to high levels of "clutter" in the radio-frequency domain but where "fast and low" threats such as cruise missiles are a danger. Homeland Security applications have also created new demands for high-definition border surveillance and tracking at extended ranges, including for targets of interest that might well be single individuals. Moreover, expeditionary warfare and the burgeoning requirements for tactical and strategic missile defence all require tailored radar defences. In such a world, acquisition budgets are under more pressure than ever before; operations and maintenance monies must be used wisely and any new systems must be supportable and upgradeable over what will be very long service lives.

The experience that Thales has of radars in both the ground and naval environments is now leading to "cross-fertilisation" of technological innovation. New products are coming that borrow the best elements of both. Using the new "platform" architecture at Surface Radars, a series of new products in X-, S- and UHF-bands are now under active development. Thales engineers are anticipating integrated tri-band radars on the same platform to provide the ultimate in multi-functionality. Truly intelligent radar is coming, systems that will actively monitor the entire airspace around it, managing space and time. Perhaps the only limiting factor is the imagination of industry itself.