EADS Defence and Security to equip Swiss military airfields with advanced air traffic control systems

As the company announced on Friday, Defence Electronics, an integrated activity of DS, has been awarded a contract by the Swiss procurement authority armasuisse for the installation of a total of five approach control systems at the military airfields of Payerne, Emmen, Meiringen, Sion and Locarno. This order has a value of more than 130 million euros and is to be completed by the end of 2016. The systems to be delivered under the designation Military Approach Control System for Switzerland (German acronym: MALS Plus) are intended to replace the obsolete radars previously used by the Swiss Armed Forces for military air traffic control. They will be used for approach control at the airfields themselves and also for air surveillance within a large radius to safely coordinate, amongst other things, military flight movements with civil air traffic. Air traffic, especially in Europe, has become so dense, explained Bernd Wenzler, CEO of Defence Electronics, that both civil and military air traffic control can no longer manage without the most modern radars and automatic identification systems. In this way, our products are making an important contribution to increasing the safety of our citizens in everyday life. The core of "MALS Plus" consists of the ASR airport surveillance radar which is also being installed by DS at 23 military airfields in Germany as part of a 250-million-euro order placed by the German Armed Forces and to be completed by 2015. For each of the five military airfields, the MALS Plus solution comprises the following components: an ASR airport surveillance radar consisting of a primary surveillance radar (PSR) and an automatic identification system of the type MSSR 2000 I (MSSR = Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar) from EADS Defence & Security. It also includes a precision approach radar (PAR) for controlling the final approach in combination with air traffic controller workstations from SELEX Galileo S.p.a., a direction finder from ROSCHI Rohde & Schwarz AG, display segments from COMSOFT GmbH as well as a connection to Switzerlands military command and control system. The Defence Electronics business unit has already made a name for itself by supplying identification systems in the military and civilian sector. For example, the MSSR secondary radar is deployed on board German Navy vessels and by the armed forces of France, Norway and South Korea for military friend-or-foe identification. For civil air traffic control, DEs identification systems are used in such countries as Portugal, Bulgaria and the Philippines.