Tenix goes on the attack

Tenix Defence's Electronic Systems Division is quietly staking out a key sector of Australia's evolving market for Electronic Warfare products and capabilities.
In Australia much recent attention has been focussed on the Electronic Surveillance (ES) element of Electronic Warfare. The ADF's principal combat and surveillance platforms have, or will soon have, world-class ES and associated warning equipment such as Radar Warning Receivers. But anticipating the growing realisation within Defence that Electronic Attack (EA) is too important to be ignored, Tenix Defence has carefully positioned itself to play a major role in this sector of the EW market.

Electronic Attack is the active part of EW - jamming and spoofing RF and electro-optic sensors and seeker heads. The EA armoury includes RF jammers and Directed IR Counter-Measures (DIRCM) - all systems that require a deep understanding on the part of the user and manufacturer of the sensors they are designed to jam as well as the tactics and techniques that deliver best operational results.

For this reason EA has traditionally been an expensive business. Cost, in relation to the capability it delivers, is one of the key factors that has kept the ADF's inventory of EA equipment fairly sparse. At present only the RAAF's F-111Cs (ELTA EL/L-8222 jammer pod) and F/A-18 Hornets (ALQ-126B internal jammer) have anything approaching a modern EA capability; indeed the former is a state of the art system acquired to provide essential protection for the F-111C in low-level penetration operations.

It is understood that the significant cost of an effective EA capability prevented this forming part of the final approved cope of Project Echidna, the ADF's airborne EWSP program, and also kept EA capabilities off the RAN's upgraded FFG-7 and Anzac-class frigates.

However, there seems little doubt that the Navy's new Air Warfare Destroyers will require an effective EA capability as part of the essential self-protection suite for these capital ships. Similarly, the RAAF's Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) aircraft will be fitted with the Northrop Grumman Nemesis DIRCM system as protection against IR-guided surface-air and air-air missiles. And the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be the most heavily protected combat aircraft in ADF history, in an ES and EA sense.

Tenix has been operating quietly in this space for some time, carrying out a number of unpublicised tasks for Defence and DSTO. Its capabilities in the EA field recently came to light when its classified Cuttlefish program won a contract in the current round of Capability & Technology Demonstrator (CTD) projects.

Cuttlefish is designed to protect lightly armed and very large amphibious transport and supply ships from air attack by developing a counter to the imaging radar (ty
Exact details of how Cuttlefish works will likely remain classified; Tenix, however, can probably claim to be the only Australian company with an EA design and engineering capability that's able to undertake this sort of work.

That capability hasn't developed by accident - the company has very deliberately positioned itself as one of the Australian defence industry's technical leaders in EA. It is built on a couple of key contracts which Tenix has undertaken over the past five years.

One of these contracts is fairly well known - the RAAF selected Israeli firm ELTA's EL/L-8222 jammer pod for its F-111Cs some six years ago under Phase 6 of Project Air 5391. Tenix Defence was ELTA's partner from the very start, with the aim of providing a robust in-country support capability for the EL/L-8222.

The process of technology transfer began with the posting of two engineers to Israel to write the system documentation and also to learn about EA techniques and tactics. That initial infusion of expertise has percolated through the organisation. Tenix Defence built the 8222 systems integration laboratory at JEWOSU and is now no longer just a sub-contractor to ELTA on this program - it has been training technicians and operators at JEWOSU and supporting ADF trials and exercises.

The most recent was EX Red Flag '04 which saw a small team of Tenix engineers deploy with the RAAF detachment to Nellis Air Force Base in the US. Tenix was the only Australian contractor involved in this deployment and its personnel demonstrated the kind of support industry can deliver to the warfighter by, on occasion, re-programming EL/L-8222 threat libraries on-site to enhance their capabilities and adjust to new threats.

And thanks also to its EL/L-8222 expertise, Tenix has begun to play a role in supporting DSTO's research into EW techniques.

While Tenix hasn't yet developed product on the scale of, say, the ALR-2002 and Nulka it has developed unique breadth and depth in its EW and aerospace engineering capabilities and has become a valued contractor to DSTO, the DMO and the ADF. A case in point is Defence's ECM Testbed program. Still highly classified, ADM understands this began with the acquisition during the late-1990s by Defence of a Canadian ECM test system, CARD. This is used to test EA techniques and tactics against a range of airborne and surface sensors and is installed aboard an aircraft of undisclosed type.

Through successive upgrades, Tenix has replaced the original hardware and software with enhanced equipment to create what is now to all intents and purposes a native Australian capability.

The ECM Testbed has a more widely known parallel in the PA.10 Flight Trials Facility (FTF), two generic pods designed to support DSTO and ADF EW Self-Protection system trials. The FTF is designed to further the development of airborne EWSP technologies acquired by Australia under the PA.10 collaborative venture between DSTO and the US.

The FTF pods are designed around a number of EWSP payloads - one pod handles RF payloads, the other electro-optic payloads - which are integrated into the pods and carried under the wing of a Learjet 36 business jet. Both types of pods use onboard and off-board counter-measure capabilities to provide both identification and reaction information relating to any possible threats.

The FTF pods were successfully test-flown earlier this year; the RF pod carried a fibre-optic towed decoy system. The EO/IR pod carried the AN/ALQ-212 laser based Directed IR Countermeasures (DIRCM) system - the DIRCM flight is believed to be an Australian first, representing a major achievement for industry and Defence collaboration.

While the FTF has a specific role under PA.10, Tenix can see further potential for the system: for the first time it provides Defence with a set of tools for testing and evaluating airborne EWSP equipment being considered for the ADF - in effect, a "try before you buy" capability which the ADF has never had before.

The Cuttlefish, FTF, ECM Testbed and EL/L-8222 programs are mutually reinforcing - they represent a combination of defence R&D, acquisition and internal R&D funding and Tenix has used its own money to leverage the technology and expertise available through projects like Air 5391 into what may be Australian industry's premier EA capability. At the same time, as its involvement in Project Echidna and the EO/IR aspects of the FTF show, the company hasn't abdicated its position at the ES end of the marketplace, either.

As noted earlier, the EA space has been dominated by overseas primes and the capabilities required to be effective in this domain have been regarded by Australia as prohibitively expensive for all but a few critical applications.

But there is an emerging strategic imperative to adopt EA more widely, especially on platforms which will enter service over the next decade, and to develop indigenous EA expertise to counter what could become an over-dependence on overseas suppliers.

Tenix's emerging presence in the EA domain has been a deliberate, strategic move designed to provide the ADF with a proficient, technology-rich source of local EA expertise and product. The company acknowledges that platforms such as the Navy's FFG-7s are unlikely to get an EA capability; the same may be true of the Anzac-class frigates; but that isn't necessarily the case with Navy's AWDs and amphibious landing ships. And it certainly isn't the case with the RAAF's F-35 Joint Strike Fighters - these will have a potent ES and EA capability.

Having patiently developed its EA capabilities and credentials, Tenix Defence is now positioning itself to address the EA opportunities it believes will emerge in the relatively near future. Watch this space.

By Gregor Ferguson, Adelaide