Aeronautica & Difesa - Gennaio 2011 - ELT

p.6 www.AsianDefence-Diplomacy.com
IMDEX ASIA - DAY 3
Sweet 60 for Elettronica
Italy’s Elettronica comes to IMDEX
Asia as it celebrates 60 years since its
foundation - as unlike many in the industry
it still has the same name as it
started out with.
The company started out by collaborating
with the Italian Contraves Company
and Turin-based Sielte.
The latter subsequently released part
of its plant in Rome to this newly born
industrial concern and Elettronica subsequently
transferred its head office
there.
The company began to specialise in
the field of electronic countermeasures
(ECM). Production included radar
countermeasures equipment as well as
the first power transmitters (Cicala series)
and ground direction finders.
This period also saw the firm supply
the Italian army with underwater equipment
(SONAR) to the Italian Navy,
among other projects both in Italy and
abroad.
By the late 1960s it was a leading
European defence company and moved
into larger premises that it occupies to
this day.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the company
made use of Travelling Wave Tube
(TWT) technology to develop an inhouse
capability in the manufacture of
broadband power tubes in the microwave
field.
The company developed ECM selfprotection
systems for the Italian and
German air forces and then embarked
on the three-nation and then Italian Tornado
adventure, with the development
and production of its Radar Warning
Receiver (RWR) and self-protection
system.
Defence systems were produced for
the “Lupo” class ships of the Italian,
Australian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian and
Venezuelan navies, as well as an integrated
naval ESM-ECM system, and
an airborne self-protection systems in
POD for the Moroccan Air Force.
Another achievement was the integrated
ESM-ECM system for helicopters,
named Colibri, supplied to many
European and non-European navies.
In the 1990s, Elettronica sold off some
minor operations such as electronic defence
in IR bands and focussed on radar
bands.
As the defence industry saw a wave
of mergers and acquisitions, the company
responded by participating in a num-
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ber of European consortiums, including
EURODASS, dedicated to the development
of Defensive Aids Sub-System of
the EFA (the Typhoon - the first fighter
featuring solid state jamming) and
SIGEN, for the defence system of Horizon
frigates and is also the design authority
and manufacturer of the NH90’s
ESM system.
Around this time, Elettronica became
the first company in the world to develop
and produce deception and jamming
equipment based on high power “solid
state” technology.
Drawing upon this, the company studied
ECM phased array broadband antennas
for an important European contract.
This combination led to a naval ECM
that helped Elettronica and Thales win a
number of contacts from the French and
Italian navies, with Elettronica main design
authority for the ECM subsystem.
The ECM solid state is a breakthrough
solution for naval applications featuring
a multitude of technical advantages not
achievable by traditional ECM systems.
In the first decade of the new millennium,
the company took a minority
stake in a small US company LNX to
facilitate its supply chain and participated
in joint ventures with AEDS and
ELTBAT, based in India and the UAE,
respectively.
As it seeks to maintain its innovative
edge the company is investing a great
amount in R&D to explore new areas
of innovation. Presently the company is
looking at cyber warfare as a key future
market and is carrying out research projects
in this area.
Future escort missions by assigned
plaforms will generate deception techniques
that are not necessarily targeted
directly against individual threats
but rather against the host network.
Elettronica is focussing both on cyber
security and cyber attack.