TUS consolidates its key niche

Thales Underwater Systems has carved out a significant presence in Australia's defence industry, underpinned by a global parent, and plenty of local R&D to develop unique Australian products for a vibrant export market.
The award of a Capability & Technology Demonstrator contract for fibre-optic sonar to Thales Underwater Systems and the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, has underlined the company's position as one of the most innovative in Australia's defence industry.

While the sonar sector has attracted a number of very smart Australian SMEs, TUS now leads the sector both in terms of size and range of activities it undertakes. Current projects, such as the Collins class submarine combat system upgrade and the FFG and ANZAC class frigate upgrades, continue to drive much of TUS's business, but the next big challenge is already in sight - the Navy's Air Warfare Destroyer (AWD) program, for which TUS has already proposed a highly capable undersea warfare solution.

The company has built its position on the back of Australia's complex and often unique maritime environment, typified by warm shallow waters with background noise and seabed conditions which are quite unlike those experienced in the northern Atlantic and Pacific by the northern hemisphere maritime powers. Furthermore, the proliferation of quiet, diesel-electric submarines throughout the Asia-pacific region has placed a premium on effective submarine detection and torpedo defence.

Thales Underwater Systems has consolidated its organisation in Australia, and today has 360 employees with a turnover of $82 million a year. The company spends about 2-3 per cent of its revenue on self funded Research & Technology (amounting to $1.5 million in 2004), has achieved some $370 million-worth of export sales since 1996, and now accounts for some 80-85 per cent of Australia's national acoustics design and manufacturing capability. TUS also undertakes important applied R&D for the RAN during acquisition programmes. TUS in Australia represents a significant proportion of its Anglo-French parent company's 2,680 strong global workforce and employs 140 professional engineers both at its headquarters in Rydalmere, NSW, and in Rockingham, WA, where it is ramping up its engineering capability to support DSTO and the development of the Replacement Combat System (RCS) for the Collins-class submarines.

According to former managing director David Harvey, who was promoted to a senior position within ADI shortly after speaking to ADM, the company plans to be present wherever there's sound or magnetism within the water. Further, it has built the capability to connect sonar and magnetic sensors to provide a network-enabled capability that underpins the wider network-centric warfare aspirations of the Navy.

TUS has been successful so far in winning business on major naval projects in Australia. It believes its track record, and the product and capability base it has developed as a result, represent a strong case for a significant role in the AWD project. The AWD will need a high-end sonar solution for task group protection as well as own-ship torpedo defence, believes Harvey, and TUS will work closely with the AWD Combat System Systems Engineer (CSSE), Raytheon Australia during the trade studies that are due to be completed by the end of this year.

Harvey has already committed TUS investment in the in-house skills and capabilities to de-risk this element of the program and position the company to bid successfully for a significant share of the AWD undersea warfare package. While he didn't disclose what the company has offered, Harvey said it would be a fully integrated solution based on proven at-sea systems and exploiting the commonalities with existing RAN equipments to control acquisition and support costs. The strong indigenous sonar and systems engineering capability that TUS has developed in Australia, makes it well placed to provide the in country through life support that the ADF requires for the AWD.

The TUS track record is based on its work for the Navy's Collins-class submarines and the Anzac and FFG frigates.

For the Collins class TUS developed the Scylla integrated sonar suite which it has upgraded and is now integrating with the replacement combat system being supplied by Raytheon. It also produces the slimline COLTAS and SHORTAS towed sonar arrays which were developed for the Collins-class boats from the original Kariwara towed array technology created by DSTO and Narama developed by Thomson Sintra Pacific in Australia. The company also produces the submarine's communications mast and antenna.

Today TUS is working with DSTO on the introduction of Open Architecture (OA) technologies to support the future evolution of the Collins submarine sonar & combat system.

For the Australian and New Zealand ANZAC-class frigates the company developed the Spherion-B hull mounted multi-function sonar, all ten of which have now been completed; the RAN's upgraded ANZAC frigates will also be equipped with the Petrel Mine and Obstacle Avoidance Sonar (MOAS) developed specifically for the RAN by TUS. Petrel is also proposed for the RAN's four Survey Motor Launches (SML).

The latest generation Spherion MFS (medium frequency sonar) will also equip the RAN's upgraded FFG frigates together with the TUS Sea Defender torpedo defence system and Petrel. TUS will provide the sonar operator's console for each ship along with a complete sub-surface command and control capability effectively delivering a fully integrated underwater warfare system. The Sea Defender consists of a towed sonar array with a smart processor to determine the range and bearing of incoming threats and trigger appropriate anti-torpedo countermeasures and ship manoeuvrers.

The fourth complete suite of upgraded FFG undersea warfare equipment successfully underwent factory acceptance in July this year; the first is already installed aboard HMAS Sydney and the second now equips an RAN shore facility. The first of the Petrel sonars for the Anzac-class ships has been delivered.

Thales Underwater Systems is also the local lead for the European-based consortium which builds the MU90 Impact lightweight torpedo. The ADF has selected this weapon for its surface ships, naval helicopters and maritime patrol aircraft. TUS with EuroTorp are the industry partners in the Djimindi alliance which is procuring the MU90 for the ADF and overseeing its integration into five separate air and surface platforms under JP2070. As part of this comprehensive program, TUS has built over 400 sets of MU90 electronics and sonar homing head components at Rydalmere for other MU90 customers as the global sole source for these components.

Phase 2 of JP2070 is well under way and has seen initial deliveries of weapons from Europe, along with the start of integration on to the ADF's frigate, fixed-wing and rotary wing platforms. The Phase 3 contract, for full rate production, is expected to be signed "soon", Harvey told ADM, and will cover local production of the ADF's inventory of warstocks.

The Navy's six Coastal Minehunters are equipped with TUS's Type 2093(A) Variable Depth Sonar (VDS); these were all delivered some time back, but the company is still manufacturing Type 2093 towed bodies for export back to its sister company in the UK, and to other export customers including Saudi Arabia.

TUS has In-Service Support (ISS) contracts with Navy to support the Collins-class sonars and the Minehunters' VDS and onboard degaussing systems.

TUS has also been working with DSTO under the oldest alliance agreement between DSTO and industry. This is a tripartite Alliance agreement that specifically focuses on delivering improved warfighting capability the ADF. Past collaborations with DSTO have lead to the high performance slimline towed sonar arrays for the Collins-class submarines and the seismic exploration market. A key innovative R&D program has been the Acoustic Mine Imaging (AMI) system, which would provide the Coastal Minehunters' Double Eagle remotely operated vehicles with a very high resolution sonar that is able to create accurate and detailed three dimensional images of mines and obstacles encountered in turbid waters so they can be accurately classified and identified before being neutralised.

The AMI project disappeared from the 2004 Defence Capability Plan (along with a number of other undersea warfare programs such as the ANZAC undersea warfare upgrade program and ASSTASS), to the disappointment of the sonar community in both industry and the ADF. While there are signs that this omission may be rectified in the future, TUS has meanwhile got on with other developments, including the RASSPUTIN active sonobuoy, a new acoustic telemetry buoy with very high acoustic performance and considerable export potential, and the SAARS sea bed acoustic ranging array program.

To help smooth the workload between major projects TUS has built up a major export business. It exports hundreds of devices each day, ranging from ceramic transducer components for European-made sonars to complete towed arrays.

A change in market conditions in the seismic exploration business resulted in a decision to spin off the non-defence sonar business which was sold off in late-2003 to Sercel, one of the world's largest suppliers of marine seismic exploration equipment. Sercel is now co-located at TUS's Rydalmere site.

In a sense TUS is a prototype for a sustainable Australian high-tech defence company. Thanks to Thales' insistence that its subsidiaries invest realistic sums in self-funded R&D, TUS has created a portfolio of products and in-house capabilities that enable it to export successfully in the defence and, until the sell-off to Sercel, the commercial markets.

For example, the acoustic elements of the Type 2087 sonar which TUS in Europe is building for the Royal Navy and the European FREMM and Horizon frigate programs are manufactured in Australia. So also are Barra sonobuoys for both the RAAF with potential for export to France.

Part of what underpins the company's product range is the need to be self-sufficient in many critical skills and capabilities - many things simply can't be bought off the shelf to suit Australia's unique requirements, so the company has high-end electronics design skills to build complex equipment which can't be sourced anywhere else. These embrace sonar processing, software and hardware engineering, systems integration, acoustic engineering and open systems architecture. In this sector the company has Australia's sole acoustic/ceramic design and manufacturing capability.

For the same reason it has in-house expertise in the chemistry of ceramics, metal alloys and polymers - while its sonar business generates a relatively small demand for these commodities, sonar products are critically sensitive to minute levels of contamination and changes in formulas and alloys, so the company needs in-house smarts and a manufacturing capability to maintain product quality.

Mechanical engineering is another much-prized skill within TUS - more so in some ways than electronics because there are relatively few engineers in Australia with any real experience of designing mechanical fixtures for sonar systems which are capable of withstanding a hostile salt water environment, the shock testing demands of the Navy and the basic utility needs of the operator - for a steerable, retractable hull-mounted MOAS like Petrel, for example.

For this reason, says Harvey, TUS has been refreshing its links with Australia's universities to encourage engineering students and provide it with access to new and emerging talent. In parallel, the company has instituted a Capability Maturity Model program for its software, systems engineering and manufacturing processes. It achieved CMMI Level 2 last year and aims to achieve CMMI Level 3 next year.

Thales Underwater Systems' global multi-domestic strategy has helped underpin the development of a critical niche capability within Australia's defence industry. While developing and supporting some critical capabilities demanded by Australia's unique operating environment, TUS in Sydney has also developed a healthy export market based on its position in the global supply chain of its parent company, and also on a breakthrough product - slimline towed sonar arrays - which helped transform both the defence and non-defence markets in which it operates.

The recent CTD contract covers the development of a fibre optic sonar sensor array which has the potential once again to transform the manufacture, deployment and operating economics of many types of sonar and keep the company, and Australia, a global leader in this domain.

By Gregor Ferguson, Sydney