Thales to develop new connected sensors for Rafale F4 standard

• Thales, alongside Dassault Aviationand Safran, has been awardeda contract by the French defence procurement agency(DGA) todevelop the  future  onboard sensors and communication systems that willequip the F4 standard ofthe Rafale omni-role combat
• New sensor technologies and new collaborative combat capabilities will enable aircrews to take the best decisions in everydecisive
• The decision making process for target engagement willbe significantly

 

Thales, as a memberof the Rafale joint venture (Groupement d’Intérêt Economique), hasbeen awarded a contract by the French defence procurement agency (DGA) to contributeto the development of the Rafale F4 standard, enabling the Rafalecombat aircraft to maintain itssuperiority against new threats.

 

Today, the Rafale is capable of performing multiple roles, ranging from reconnaissance to airdefence andprecision strikes, inthe course of a single mission. The aircraft isalso central to France’s airbornenuclear deterrence, a crucial componentof France’s National Security policy, which calls for the highest standards of levels oftechnological excellence. Tomorrow’s combat aircraft aircrews will face abroader range of threats inincreasingly complex operational environments, and will therefore need to analyse larger volumesof data in very short timeframes to ensure mission success and protect civil populations. The sophisticated electronic equipment and systems Thales equips on the Rafale, fromnose-to-tail, will help these aircrews meet these challengers.

 

Under the Rafale F4 standard development programme, Thales engineers and technicians will enhance the aircraft’s onboard sensors and improve connectivity to offer a broaderrange of

 

capabilities and new operational functions by enabling greater interconnection between the Rafale and all the other assetsdeployed on the mission. Collaborative combat is now crucialfor taking part in coalition operations, countering new types ofthreats and conducting sovereignty operations. In particular, Thales will prepare for the introduction of the CONTACT radio; secure, intelligent communications server technology; and a Syracuse IV satellite communications capability. To ensure high survivability,new threat detection and jamming capabilities will be developed for the aircraft’s SPECTRA electronic warfare system. Further improvements to the air-to-ground mode of the RBE2 active electronic scanning array (AESA) radar are also planned. Inaddition, the TALIOS optronic podwill incorporate artificial intelligence to analyse tactical data almost instantaneously in flight and extract and identifytargets.

 

The enhancements will enable aircrews to assess tactical situations more effectively, handle significantly larger volumes ofinformation in real time, and make the best choices in every decisive moment in order to safely and securelylocate, identify, classify andengage threats, and to assess andanalyse the resultsof the action taken.

 

To meet the needs ofusers, armed forces also need a high level of equipment availability. The developmentof predictive maintenance based on technologiessuch as Big Data and artificial intelligence is a key componentof Thales’s strategy. The purposeof predictive maintenance is toanticipate failures before they occur: Thales’s new developments for the Rafale F4standard aim to make this objective a reality.

 

“This contract is a further endorsement by the French Ministry for the Armed Forces of the industrial know-how and advanced technology expertise of French defencecontractors. The RafaleF4 standard’s sensors and communication systems will be a key driverof the shift towards collaborative combat, and Thales’s capabilities in connectivityand artificial intelligence will enable Rafale air crews to make the best choices in every decisive moment,” Patrice Caine, Chairman & CEO,Thales.

 

 

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