Contract Award: General Dynamics to provide its Tactical Mobile Routers for United Arab Emirates' Command and Control System

News Report

As reported in a recent press release, General Dynamics Canada has received a contract to supply more than 2,700 Tactical Mobile Routers (TMR) for use in the Emirates Command and Control System (ECCS), a Command, Control, Communication, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) program that will integrate and coordinate the tactical assets of the United Arab Emirates. The contract was awarded by Emiraje Systems, the UAE-based prime contractor for the ECCS.

The Technology

Current battlefield networks are increasingly employing standard Internet transport protocols which impose high bandwidth overhead and rely on consistent end-to-end connectivity. This technological solution has difficulty providing acceptable message delivery performance over the typically tactical network.

General Dynamics' Tactical Mobile Router (TMR) overcomes these challenges by analyzing network feedback to characterize links as Desired, Disadvantaged or Disrupted and then by delivering information via the most appropriate bearer. TMR uses advanced MESHnet® grade protocols designed to transfer messages with reliability, efficiency and reasonable latency in a disrupted heterogeneous network environment.

TMR is basically a rugged Internet router which ensure that military personnel can communicate using off-the-shelf applications, including e-mail, chat messages, and multimedia-rich shared information resources in challenging battlefield environments. The TMR creates tactical Internet ad-hoc networks seamlessly that automatically form, reconfigure, and operate even when network infrastructure is overloaded, damaged, or unavailable due to mountainous or remote terrain, urban environments, or other conditions. In addition, TMR's critical store-and-forward capabilities ensure continues flow of voice, data and Blue Force Tracking in rugged and remote military environments with communications infrastructure

Integration of the TMR into the existing UAE C4ISR networks offers an affordable, dependable option to extend the life of legacy networks while adding new internet-like applications.

Comments

“General Dynamics Canada worked closely with the Emiraje systems network design team to ensure that the TMR was able to address the most extreme requirements including some of the harshest, most challenging and remote environments that are open to network disruption,” said David Ibbetson, General Manager of General Dynamics Canada. “With the deployment of the TMR, UAE is adding strategic capability that ensures their soldiers have access to the type of reliable, continuous and ubiquitous Internet-like communication in the battlefield that we all have become accustomed to in our daily lives”.

The Context

Emirates Command and Control System (ECCS) is a major Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Program, which will federate, integrate, coordinate and maximize the combined efficiency of the UAE Armed Forces assets.

As prime contractor of ECCS, Emiraje Systems carries out in Abu Dhabi all system design and system integration activities, as well as the development of critical components. the Company also drives the solid industrial organization it has built, based on worldwide defence suppliers and subcontractors from Spain, France, UK, Canada, UAE and Switzerland. ECCS also represents a new model of industrial cooperation. Emiraje Systemshas been established in 2009 as a strategic Joint Venture between C4 Advanced Solutions (C4AS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Emirates Advanced Investments group (EAI), and Cassidian (the former EADS Defence & Security).

References: General Dynamics (1,2), Security News Desk (3)