Demonstration of Indigenous C4 Capability in Late 2021

Barrett Communications is one of 16 Australian companies forming Team C4 EDGE (Evolutionary Digital Ground Environment), which seeks to cope development of a sovereign land battlegroup and below communications environment for the Australian army, the company announced on 17 August.

The programme will leverage internationally agreed open standards to grow and demonstrate Australian C4 industry capacity and capability to deliver a battlegroup and below C4 capability.

Ultimately, by the end of 2021, the programme will have delivered a proof-of-concept demonstrator that shows an indigenous capability to further develop a protected, integrated and supportable sovereign system: one that delivers agile and resilient C2 functionality to meet the flexible, scalable and interoperability needs of a battle group operating independently or with partners.

The C4 technologies embodied in the demonstrator may include:

• Mounted and dismounted radio-frequency bearer systems;

• Force tracking;

• Battle application environment;

• Network planning and management;

• Data distribution systems;

• Sovereign cryptography;

• Sovereign waveform.

In June 2020 EOS Defence Systems signed a A$4.2 million (€2.5 million) contract with the Commonwealth to act as lead contractor for Team C4 EDGE delivery of Phase 1 over the period June-September 2020.

Phase One will design and define the demonstration system and establish the essential accreditation architecture and processes necessary to deliver an ‘accreditable by design’ demonstration capability and associated industry development plans.

The 16 Australian Team C4 EDGE companies, which come from six states and one territory, have an aggregate 975 employees, gross turnover of A$616 million and annual global exports in the region of A$408 million. The Team is keen to hear from companies meeting the participation guidelines.