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Today, the digital revolution is upon us - and Thales is continuing to occupy the high ground of this key technology.

With a whole new philosophy, the very latest technologies and state-of-the-art processes, Thales has reinvented its radar business. To match customer expectations and meet the requirements of 21^st-century missions, the Group has completely reorganised its surface radar activities.

The radar platform concept

The idea of a common core has already proved successful in the automotive industry, and Thales has now applied it to the development of future radars. Jean-Philippe Hardange, responsible for strategy, technology and innovation, says: "We've defined a common product architecture, which, combined with the use of common radar components for our land and naval product lines, has brought significant reductions in costs and time to market, slashing in-service maintenance requirements at the same time."

This is nothing short of a revolution in the radar industry. Today, Thales can design a new radar system and bring it to market in just two years, compared with four years previously. Production costs have been reduced by around 30%. And the 100-plus electronic circuits - all proprietary - that went into a previous-generation radar have been replaced by 10 standardised building blocks, some derived directly from the telecom sector. Reliability has risen by a factor of four. Digital technologies developed for the Internet are used to monitor and maintain radars from remote locations, and the radars themselves are easier to operate.

The surface radar revolution has also transformed the development process, with a new organisation around two product lines - naval radars and ground radars - and a common technical development platform that coordinates standardisation of building blocks and interfaces for each new product. To support these three entities, an engineering centre manages the system architecture and development of building blocks, and provides new tools and methods.

The Limours and Rouen centres in France and the Hengelo centre in the Netherlands previously focused on development and manufacture, but now have the additional responsibility of product definition, marketing and technical assistance.

New threats, new requirements

Today's armed forces are faced with a broad array of new threats in an increasingly unpredictable environment. First, more and more force projection operations are conducted from the sea, shifting the focus to littoral waters, which are difficult to monitor due to the density and diversity of potential threats. And second, theatres of operations are also much more diverse: out-of-area crisis stabilisation and peacekeeping operations, missile defence at home or abroad and protection against asymmetric and other terrorist-related threats are just three examples.

Another challenge is the growing emphasis on environmental aspects. New-generation Thales radars are built from non-polluting materials, use less electricity and generate less electromagnetic radiation. Based on a common platform for both naval and ground-based product lines, they are perfectly matched to this new set of requirements. New radar families are simply adapted from this baseline to create specific versions for each type of application. The Sea Watcher 100 and Sea Master 400 are the primary sensors of the integrated mast that will equip future warships. The Sea Watcher 100 can detect the smallest surface targets, even in littoral waters, while the Sea Master 400 generates an overall picture of the air situation. The Coast Watcher 100 is the first fully solid-state long-range radar for coastal surveillance. The Ground Master 400 has set impressive new standards of reliability and availability in air defence radars. Thales also offers the Homeland Alerter 100 - an entirely passive radar that exploits civil broadcasting wavebands for low- and very low-altitude surveillance. And lastly, the SMART-L and M3R radars are designed to meet the ballistic missile defence requirements of naval and land forces, respectively.

The future is all-digital

As well as addressing the needs of the early 21^st century, Thales is already looking further into the future. Tomorrow's radars will be wideband sensors sharing antennas and functions with communication and electronic warfare systems. The integrated mast for warships is the first illustration of this integrated approach. Future radars will operate as part of broader networks and will be distributed throughout the theatre of operations, just like the new generation of passive radars available today. They will also be all-digital, with hundreds or even thousands of receivers. That means greater flexibility, faster processing and better performance - all at lower cost. A full-scale revolution is underway, and the intelligent radar of the future is clearly visible on the horizon!

Extract from Login to Thales - 4^th quarter 2007