ESSOR to enter stage 4

R&S's Soveron D joint radio system was used to test and evaluate ESSOR waveforms in support of a4ESSOR. (R&S)

The European Secure Software Defined Radio (ESSOR) programme will enter stage 4 in July, a Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) spokesperson told Janes on 10 April. The stage 4 of the programme will involve the fielding of a high data-rate waveform (HDRWF) and development of a narrowband waveform (NBWF) with the aim of ensuring native interoperability among different types of radios for NATO and its Federated Mission Networking (FMN) capability.

Andreas Boyd Buchin, operations director at the Alliance for ESSOR (a4ESSOR) joint venture, told journalists including from Janes visiting R&S at the beginning of April that the ESSOR programme seeks to enable interoperability of mission-critical radio connectivity assets for all domains by co-developing and standardising waveforms and the supporting infrastructure. It aims to develop pan-European software-defined radio (SDR) technology to improve the interoperability of armed forces participating in coalition operations. The participating countries are Germany, Finland, France, Italy, Poland, and Spain.

The Bonn-based Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation (Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en matière d'Armement: OCCAR) is the ESSOR programme office, which has contracted a4ESSOR made up of Bittium, Indra, Leonardo, Radmor, R&S, and Thales. The programme cost is EUR290 million (USD323.7 million) for 2008–25.

a4ESSOR is the design authority and customer focal point tasked with the management, co-ordination, and control of the design and development of ESSOR products.

In addition to the HDRWF and NBWF, these products include the ESSOR 3-Dimensional Waveform (3DWF) and ESSOR Satellite communication Waveform. There will be NATO Standardization Agreements (STANAGs) for all four waveforms.