French RIFAN 2.1 contract issued

Rohde & Schwarz has received a contract with Airbus and Naval Group for phase 2.1 of the French RIFAN programme, the company announced on 2 April.

The contract, awarded by the French Defence Procurement Agency, covers services to maintain and adapt the French naval forces' existing RIFAN 2 IP network, to integrate new ships and address hardware and software sustainment.

Expanding on the contract agreed in 2008, Rohde & Schwarz will now maintain the existing radio communications up to 2027.

The Rohde & Schwarz M3SR Series4400 VHF/UHF radios, equipped with the SATURN digital NATO EPM waveform, are interoperable with the analogue HAVE QUICK algorithm. The radios transmit Link 11 tactical data and are prepared for Link 22. The radios use both fixed and hopping frequencies for voice transmission and support IP based data transfer with high throughput.

The RIFAN programme equips French naval forces with a secure broadband network designed for the transmission of data with different classification levels (from unclassified to secret) between ships at sea and on-shore command centres. The network transmits data from applications that coordinate carrier group operations and those dedicated to on-board logistics management. The network utilises satellite connections as well as radio communications systems allowing all-IP transmission between ships.

RIFAN 2 also provides overall network management and cybersecurity incident monitoring capability. This monitoring can take place both from an on-shore management system in a control centre as well as on board the ships.