First military radar data network is being established in Germany. Surveillance experts from German ATC/ATM solution provider COMSOFT successfully accomplished major milestone.
The installations of the three phase project MilRADNET have been put into operational service by the German Air Force. MilRADNET so far comprises a country-wide radar data network with five communication nodes, formed by COMSOFT’s flexible radar communication front end processor, RMCDE. Currently processing unclassified data, the installation of a mirrored red MilRADNET, for confidential communication, with security gateways to the currently operated black MilRADNET is scheduled for 2009.
Classified data will from then on be processed as well, strictly separated from the unclassified data and using a new military derivative of the well-established civil ASTERIX standard, the so-called MilASTERIX.
Back in 2005 the German Air Force started the project by setting up an intelligent surveillance network for the purpose of military data exchange. In July 2007 the project entered phase two, focussing on the integration of a supplementary, special version of RMCDE as a fifth communication node in the Deployable Control and Reporting Centre (DCRC).
DCRC is a complex mobile command post of the German Air Force, designed for relocation to any place, worldwide. Furthermore, a Radar Data Recording and Replay (RRR) system and an Integrated Quality Monitoring (IQM) system were added. Completion and subsequent implementation of the military data exchange format MilASTERIX and the certification of the network by BSI, the German Federal Office for Information Security, will round off this important infrastructure project in phase three, scheduled to begin in 2009.
RADNET – the civil equivalent – is an intelligent, service-oriented surveillance network in Europe for the distribution and the exchange of radar and radar-related data, including weather information and control and monitoring data. RADNET is operated by EUROCONTROL together with its growing number of member states since 1993. It allows the ATC centres the access and usage of any available surveillance information fed into the network at any point in real-time, in a safe way and in guaranteed high availability. Internally, RADNET processes data in terms of filtering or user-specific flow-control in pure ASTERIX format. RMCDEs are used as interpreter and converter of any non-ASTERIX formats.