SAFRAN preparing for a new generation of warfare

French company SAFRAN’s is used widely across the Australian Defence Force (ADF) including submarines and surface ships, helicopters and many of its military Command, Control and Communication (C3) systems.

HMAS Sydney firing a Harpoon missile: this ship is fitted with a SAFRAN IRST Infrared search and track sensor

You might not be familiar with French company SAFRAN, but its subsidiary SNECMA built the Atar 09 jet engines that powered the RAAF’s 197 Mirage III fighters from the 1960s to the 80s and builds CFM56 jet engines with General Electric which power the majority of Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s operating in the region. Another subsidiary, Turbomeca, provides turbine engines for about half of Australia’s civil helicopters and the Adour turbofan that powers the RAAF’s 33 Hawk 127 lead-In Fighter trainers.

Engines aren’t all the company does, however. The Royal Australian Navy uses SAFRAN Infra Red Search and Track (IRS&T) sensors on its ANZAC-class frigates, Air Warfare Destroyers and Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) ships. An IRST system is the first line of defence against incoming sea-skimming anti-ship missiles – it can detect them even before radar systems do.

The company’s electro-optic (or optronic) sensors, targeting and navigation systems also equip the Army’s armored vehicles and unmanned systems.

SAFRAN supplies the Army with key optronic systems such as the handheld JIM Compact which incorporates a thermal imager and laser rangefinder. This is a key part of the Army’s Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) portfolio that enables close air and artillery support to troops on the ground.

Anthony Bianco, SAFRAN sales and marketing manager

SAFRAN’s Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) equipment is used widely across the Australian Defence Force (ADF) including Navy submarines and surface ships, the ADF’s helicopters and many of its military Command, Control and Communication (C3) systems says the company’s sales and marketing manager Anthony Bianco.

It helps that SAFRAN’s equipment is unencumbered by the US State Department’s onerous International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) regime, which makes deep integration with the ADF’s non-US platforms much easier and simpler, Bianco adds.

SAFRAN Pacific, which is headquartered in Sydney, co-ordinates the network of SAFRAN entities that deliver and support these systems. It has direct links to the SAFRAN engine companies, smart sensor manufacturer SAFRAN Electronics & Defense and SAFRAN’s US subsidiary. SAFRAN also has a sizeable Space Division that is a world leader in Space Situational Awareness, Low Earth Orbit telemetry and Space PNT solutions, affording it the unique capability to detect and track naval ships at sea using its global passive RF network.

The company has 7200 employees in the Asia-Pacific region alone and in Australia, it turned over about $180m in 2022/2023; SAFRAN Electronics and Defense accounted for about $56m of that and employs 55 people supporting the ADF and providing precision PNT equipment which enables the ADF to operate in heavily contested environments where GPS is jammed or degraded.

This requirement has become so critical that Defence has accelerated its PNT hardening program, Joint Project 9380, following the Defence Strategic Review.

SAFRAN plans to quickly enhance ADF capability by offering a suite of mature, battle-proven and integrated products and solutions. And it is already providing them to two significant unmanned systems currently being developed in Australia: Boeing’s MQ-28A Ghost Bat and another key classified program.

The company’s PNT technology is heavily used in the ADF’s maritime combat systems, air traffic control systems, critical defence base infrastructure, airborne platforms and the missile defence systems being acquired by the Australian Army. These platforms all now have a clear and cost-effective upgrade path to the secure and more accurate GPS M-CODE – the company’s GPS receivers were all designed to accommodate M-Code cards.

SAFRAN Federal Systems USA, which provides highly classified NAVWAR and PNT technology to the Pentagon and US government, is now establishing its presence in Australia to support these new capabilities and leverage Australian and US intellectual property for the tripartite AUKUS Alliance.

Pillar 2 of the AUKUS agreement lists six advanced capabilities for joint R&D and acquisition. They are trusted autonomy, hypersonics, quantum technology, directed energy weapons, information warfare (including electronic warfare), and long-range fires.

PNT is fundamental to almost all of them, Bianco says, “because a major vulnerability of the current Defence ecosystem is its reliance on GPS, which is the form of PNT technology that most people are familiar with.”

The timing signals received from US-owned GPS satellites are an essential part of the GPS navigation function – if the GPS satellite constellation signals were jammed in our region, ADF platforms and weapons would struggle. Furthermore, adds Bianco: the Link 16 datalink that connects ADF platforms and weapons also depends on a synchronised timing signal – lose GPS and you’ve lost Link 16 as well. Similarly, all ADF C3 systems rely on this timing synchronisation for persistent long-range targeting which is critical to deploying long range fires and guided weapons.

All of SAFRAN’s navigation and PNT systems contain highly accurate clocks whose signals can replace those of a compromised GPS system and so enable accurate navigation and timing synchronisation across platforms and systems regardless of the circumstances. This combination of independent and accurate position and timing data is known in the industry as the “PNT Trusted Core” says Bianco.

“SAFRAN is the only company in the world that has completely mastered all the positioning and timing technologies that make up this trusted core in contested environments and we are the only company in the world that owns this entire supply chain.”

SAFRAN also believes it is the only organisation with significant visibility of the NAVWAR and PNT needs of both the US and EU defence forces.

“We have a really intimate understanding of what is happening with NAVWAR in Ukraine and our US teams are playing a key role in advancing the US NAVWAR capability with the US Joint Navigation Warfare Centre,” says Bianco. “This feedback goes straight back into our products and we are investing and developing the next generation of NAVWAR and PNT products right now, that will be able to keep the ADF ahead of the curve over the next 15 years.”

That focus across PNT, NAVWAR and Space, he says, means SAFRAN Electronics and Defence has the depth and breadth to accelerate technology development during the next 5-10 years and provide turnkey solutions to customers at speed and scale across land, air, space and sea domains.