Irish Air Corps advances SitaWare suite by air

Ireland’s new airborne capabilities are enhancing the country’s ability to keep track of its busy Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), advancing its security and economic interests.

Defence Forces Ireland (DFI) has continued to expand its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities in the air through the Irish Air Corps’ Airbus C-295MPA maritime patrol aircraft fleet.

Equipped with SitaWare Headquarters and SitaWare Frontline, the two C-295MPA aircraft are able to provide unparalleled situational awareness for DFI, which is charged with monitoring activities in a maritime EEZ that measures 437,500km². The aircraft’s sensor suite includes maritime surveillance radars, Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS-B) tracking for ships and aircraft, and more.

SitaWare gathers, processes, and fuses together the data provided by the aircraft’s sensor suite, feeding the resulting common operational picture (COP) back to ground using either Very High Frequency (VHF) or High Frequency (HF) radios, or the aircraft’s ViaSat GAT-5530 dual-band broadband satellite communication (SATCOM) terminal.

Delivering critical situational awareness

“Using SitaWare allows us to have a comprehensive recognized maritime picture and then distribute our assets accordingly. The C-295MPAs give us a ground-truth capability in near real-time that satellite intelligence systems can’t deliver. Using electronic sensors like AIS alone means that you will not have an accurate picture, as they can be spoofed. Airborne radar systems are, however, inescapable, and when combined with electro-optical systems, we can get an extremely good overview of who is out there and what they are up to,” Commander Brian Matthews of the Irish Naval Service says.

This ability to deliver a correlated near-real time joint COP and other intelligence, such as live video, allows commanders at sea and ashore to gain the best visibility of the maritime space. This is particularly useful during the critical phases of a mission, when vessels can change direction and assault teams need to know about any changes in plans.

"The Irish Air Corps’ predecessor to the Airbus C295 was the Airbus CN235, with its primary role as maritime surveillance. The CN235 had been in service in the Irish Air Corps since 1994 and while it was a workhorse of the fleet, it didn’t offer the same range of technology. The progression to the C-295MPA, and the capability offered, has been immense. The ability to collect and share near real-time data with our colleagues in the Naval Service and DF Operations is transformative in how we operate," says the Irish Air Corps’ Commandant Eva Balfe.

Continuing the airborne employment of SitaWare

The deployment of SitaWare into the aircraft continues to bolster Ireland’s use of SitaWare for airborne surveillance operations. DFI announced in September 2021 that it would be fitting three of its Pilatus PC-12NG aircraft with SitaWare Headquarters and Frontline. Configured as SPECTRE platforms, these provide an advanced Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) picture to the Defence Forces in support of ground operations by the Irish Army and Irish Naval Service.

The networking capabilities provided by the SitaWare suite’s communications protocols – SitaWare Headquarters Communication (SHC) and SitaWare Tactical Communication (STC) – also allow the C-295MPA and PC-12NG aircraft to function as critical communications bearers to DFI assets on land, at sea, and in the air.

“The ability to act as a transmission and rebroadcast node for users, while also providing a constantly updated COP, means that all our users of the SitaWare suite can know where everyone is and what they’re up to. We also get to know where objects of interest are, and as much data about them as possible – allowing for informed on-the-fly decisions and the greatest likelihood of mission success. Additionally, the redundancy levels that SHC and STC provide, alongside message prioritization, allow users to have confidence in their communications systems,” Commandant Paul Shorte, Senior Solution Architect at DFI explains.

Supporting expansion and integration

Systematic worked with DFI as part of the acquisition to establish an integration test bench at Airbus’ facility in Spain, which allowed DFI to undertake the integration of sensors, computer hardware, and communications technology into SitaWare. This test bench also gave DFI the ability to develop and enhance its operational usage of SitaWare, developing plug-ins and software modules as required to enhance operational capabilities.

This enhanced capability for the Irish Air Corps comes as Defence Forces Ireland has significantly increased its commitment to Systematic’s SitaWare suite, with a substantial purchase of additional licenses valued at more than EUR6 million signed at the end of 2023.

These additional licenses will allow DFI to place the SitaWare suite of products at the forefront of its digitalization initiatives, helping ensure that DFI is able to maximize the value of its existing and future platforms and systems.

The SitaWare suite works as a standards-based C4I building block system, with an open architecture that helps support extensions as needed by users. This means that militaries can embrace advanced C4ISR capabilities despite differing levels of internal digitalization – from delivering data across ultra-fast communications networks, to supporting situational awareness on legacy networks and systems that may be operating in contested electro-magnetic environments.

The SitaWare suite is also able to share COPs across coalition environments as well as with users who may have lower levels of security clearance. In addition to ad hoc and complex military coalition operations - such as those seen in peacekeeping or military emergency response - it can be used in military assistance to civilian operations, crime and law enforcement operational support, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and more.