Updated 4:49pm Tuesday 18th April 2017
Australian company Cirrus Real Time Processing Systems has been awarded a $4.4 million contract to develop a tactical electronic warfare training system to provide tuition, assessment and qualification of electronic warfare practitioners across the full range of Navy ships, from a single facility ashore.
Minister for Defence Industry Christopher Pyne said Navy is planning to deploy a common electronic warfare sensor suite across the future fleet and is matching the training to meet upcoming demand. The contract comes under the auspices of Navy Minor Project 1933 (Tactical Electronic Warfare Training System) and the system known as TACEW would form part of the School of Maritime Warfare - EW section at HMAS Watson.
Cirrus' Simulation Training Network (STN) technology will be adapted to provide immersive simulation based training on the operation of modern EW equipment against a range of threat types within a scenario based simulation.
He added the modernisation of training at the School of Maritime Warfare would reduce the training burden on ships at sea and offer a consistent training continuum.
“Navy’s current training facilities are based on the equipment and systems in the Adelaide and Anzac class frigates, but as these systems develop, so too must the training,” he said.
“Tactical electronic warfare involves the effective employment of systems, tactics and operating procedures to exploit the electromagnetic spectrum to protect Navy’s ships and people from all manner of threats.”
Prior to sea postings, future EW sailors who will train and qualify on the systems will have a greater understanding of electronic warfare and a broader range of skills.
“The enhanced training systems will be capable of generating scenarios that simulate physical and electronic attacks where control of the electromagnetic spectrum can neutralise those threats,” Minister Pyne said.
Cirrus MD Peter Freed was pleased the company had been recognised for its strength in complex simulation systems design.
“TACEW joins the Air Combat Officer Training System (ACOTS) and the Generic COMCEN Simulator (GCS) in Cirrus' growing stable of simulation training systems with which we support the ADF.”
Minister Pyne said in a second win for Australian industry, Cirrus had also been awarded an international contract to develop a complex prototype Incident Training Application (ITA).
“If accepted for further development, the ITA would be used in the jointly developed AN-BYG-1 Submarine Tactical and Weapon Control System to enhance submarine crew training,” he said.
This contract represented the fourth Advanced Processing Build (APB) contract for Cirrus. APB is a joint USN/RAN program that manages a multi-step process to evolve the AN/BYG-1 combat control system that is in operational use with both the RAN and USN submarine fleets.
ITA allows submarine command to plan various incident training activities and to assess the impact of these on the platform’s mission by conducting ‘what if?’ analyses. ITA extends functionality provided by the Battery Management App (BMA) developed by Cirrus under a previous APB contract, and which is currently progressing through the APB process.