EADS: Dornier to develop software for future NATO Air Forces planning system
Friedrichshafen, 28 February 2001
EADS European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company has been contracted by NATO to develop highly complex software systems for the planning of the NATO air effort. This contract for the delivery of IT systems for the future NATO Air Command and Control System ACCS has been received by Dornier GmbH, an affiliated company of EADS, as the company announced on Wednesday. The contract is worth a total of DM 35 million and will secure highly qualified jobs in the EADS Defence Electronics business unit, which has sites at Friedrichshafen, Ulm and Munich-Unterschleissheim.
The basis for the development is provided by the Dornier mission planning system DIPLAS, which is in service with all wings of the German Air Force. Building on the experience gained in the recent past, the system is to be expanded in such a way that it allows the planning, command and control of large-scale multinational air efforts in close cooperation with the other services, i.e. army and navy. Among the tasks involved are the determination of flight routes which take exclusion zones and minimum flight altitudes into account, coordinate the sequence of takeoffs and landings and also ensure the separation from civil air traffic. To achieve this as well as the advance planning of available aircraft, repair times or fuel quantities, support is needed from the latest software provided by the EADS specialists in conjunction with the US American company Raytheon and the French company Thales.
"Such a complex task can only be tackled by a company such as EADS, which already has extensive experience in the development of command and control systems for the armed forces," stated Dr. Stefan Zoller, Head of the EADS Defence Electronics business unit and Chairman of the Dornier Executive Board. For example, EADS supplied core systems of the recently commissioned Schoenewalde Command and Reporting Centre (CRC) near Berlin and demonstrated its competence in this field by developing the Surface-to-Air Missile Operations Center (SAMOC) and the Army Air Defence Surveillance, Command and Control System.
At the same time, EADS disposes of key components of a comprehensive Joined Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Architecture, such as reconnaissance systems as well as sensor and communication technologies. "The new tasks of the armed forces," commented Zoller, "require a more efficient coordination of all available resources, and here EADS is in a position to offer excellent solutions thanks to its wide-ranging technological capabilities."
The overriding aim is not simply to achieve the greatest possible efficiency in the command and control of an individual weapon system but the best possible use of all resources on the basis of total networking and information superiority. The purpose of this " superiority threat" is to prevent, or at least limit as far as possible the use of weapons.
EADS emerged in July 2000 from the link-up of the three companies DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (Dasa, Munich), Aerospatiale Matra (Paris) and Construcciones Aeronáuticas S.A. (CASA, Madrid) and with revenues amounting to EUR 24,2 billion (2000) is the world's third largest aerospace company.
Your point of contact:
EADS European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company
Defence Electronics
Lothar Belz
Tel.: (0731) 392 3681
Email: lothar.belz@vs.dasa.de
