CASSIDIAN to protect Canadian Naval Vessels against laser-based attacks

• New tech­nolo­gies to counter asym­met­ric laser threats
• Close coop­er­a­tion between Cas­sid­i­an and Defence Research and Devel­op­ment Cana­da at Valcartier

Cas­sid­i­an, the defence and secu­ri­ty divi­sion of EADS, is devel­op­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to pro­tect ships of the Cana­di­an Navy against asym­met­ric laser-based threats. 

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Under the des­ig­na­tion LOCATES (Laser Opti­cal Coun­ter­mea­sures and Sur­veil­l­lance Against Threat Envi­ron­ment Sce­nar­ios), the Defence Research and Devel­op­ment Cana­da (DRDC), based in Valcartier/Québec award­ed Cas­sid­i­an a con­tract in 2011 to apply new tech­nolo­gies to detect and counter laser-based threats such as laser-beam­rid­er mis­siles in har­bors and lit­toral waters. Now, the Crit­i­cal Design Review has been achieved allow­ing the hard­ware devel­op­ment and inte­gra­tion of a demon­stra­tor sys­tem which will be field-test­ed in July 2012 until the sec­ond half of 2013. 

The pro­gramme reacts to increas­ing threats of laser range find­ers, laser des­ig­na­tors and laser-guid­ed weapons which are wide­ly dis­trib­uted and easy to oper­ate. Navy ships are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble in a lit­toral envi­ron­ment where attacks are dif­fi­cult to be detect­ed with­out suf­fi­cient pre-warn­ing time. 

There­fore, LOCATES aims at the devel­op­ment of a detec­tion and track­ing capa­bil­i­ty togeth­er with a reli­able laser coun­ter­mea­sure sys­tem. In close coop­er­a­tion between Cas­sid­i­an and DRDC, the pro­gramme will include tech­nolo­gies devel­oped by DRDC and Cassidian’s expe­ri­ence in the pro­duc­tion of laser-based self-pro­tec­tion systems. 

“As the threat sce­nario con­fronting naval forces world­wide is con­ti­nous­ly evolv­ing, the Cana­di­an Navy needs cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies to detect and pro­tect ves­sels from asym­met­ric threats,” said Simon Jacques, Cas­sid­i­an Head of Cana­di­an Sales. “Cas­sid­i­an is proud to con­tin­ue our long-term col­lab­o­ra­tion with the DRDC, and lever­age our know-how and exper­tise to devel­op future laser detec­tion and coun­ter­mea­sure inno­va­tions. Tech­nolo­gies devel­oped in part­ner­ship with the DRDC-Val­carti­er will not only sat­is­fy the Cana­di­an Navy’s lit­toral require­ments, but also those of allied Navies through­out the world.” 

Cas­sid­i­an cap­i­tal­izes on a wide-rang­ing expe­ri­ence in the field of plat­form self-pro­tec­tion in the elec­tro-optic spec­trum. The com­pa­ny has devel­oped laser warn­ing devices for ships, air­craft and land vehi­cles which are in oper­a­tion with sev­er­al NATO armed forces. Its MILDS mis­sile launch detec­tion sys­tem, with more than 8,000 units sold, is the stan­dard mis­sile warn­er for heli­copters and wide­body air­craft on a glob­al scale. 

About CASSIDIAN (www.cassidian.com)
Cas­sid­i­an, an EADS com­pa­ny, is a world­wide leader in glob­al secu­ri­ty solu­tions and sys­tems, pro­vid­ing Lead Sys­tems Inte­gra­tion and val­ue- added prod­ucts and ser­vices to civ­il and mil­i­tary cus­tomers around the globe: air sys­tems (air­craft and unmanned aer­i­al sys­tems), land, naval and joint sys­tems, intel­li­gence and sur­veil­lance, cyber secu­ri­ty, secure com­mu­ni­ca­tions, test sys­tems, mis­siles, ser­vices and sup­port solu­tions. In 2011, Cas­sid­i­an – with around 28,000 employ­ees – achieved rev­enues of € 5.8 bil­lion. EADS is a glob­al leader in aero­space, defence and relat­ed ser­vices. In 2011, the Group – com­pris­ing Air­bus, Astri­um, Cas­sid­i­an and Euro­copter – gen­er­at­ed rev­enues of € 49.1 bil­lion and employed a work­force of more than 133,000.

CASSIDIAN – Defend­ing World Security 

Con­tact:
Lothar Belz
Tel.: +49 (0)731 392‑3681
lothar.belz@cassidian.com