Page 40 - Australian Defence Magazine June 2021

38 LAND FORCES C4 EDGE
JUNE 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
In terms of the demonstration program later this year, work is well underway; the usual magic black boxes, ancil- laries and architecture are taking shape.
“Some of that technology is being hosted in accredited black boxes, so they’re being developed and manufactured by Australian industry,” Sanderson said. “So all of the sys- tems’ cryptography and the waveforms development which are being produced by a number of different companies will be plugged into all the different radio architectures that we are modelling and demonstrating.”
There are multiple different architectures, physical and virtual radio architectures that are being modelled for Army, and that’s to give obviously all the radio manufac- turing companies the opportunity to demonstrate what they can and might be able to do in the future.
There will also be peripheral sensors and robots, along with vehicles and modules that were manufactured and integrated to demonstrate on-the-move capabilities, Sand- erson says. Satcom and blue force tracking and an Aus- tralian battle management system demonstrated as part of stitching the whole thing together are also part of the demonstration.
“It’s an end to end battlegroup and below solution,” Sand- erson said to ADM. “In fact, there’ll be a number of dif- ferent solutions for battlegroup and below demonstrated. Again, the purpose of the activity is to just simply conduct a demonstration of what Australian industry can do now and
BELOW: Australian Army Reserve soldier
Private Joshua Thomson-Schmidt calls-in on a radio during a Stability Operations scenario at Shenton College as part of Exercise ARRAS held in Perth, WA.
what Australian industry will be able to do in the future.” “The C4 EDGE approach demonstrates one method to understand and grow sovereign capacity,” a Defence spokesperson said. “Other options open to Australian com- panies include the Defence Innovation Hub and more In- tegrated Investment Program activities. Each program or project must consider its own needs in determining which
approach is most suitable to achieve their objectives. “The experience of C4 EDGE will inform a number of fu- ture projects including Land 200 Phase 3 Battlefield Com- mand System. Land 200-3 is expected to acquire between
$1.5-2.3 billion in C4 capabilities from 2023 to 2027.”
OUTPUTS
Two of the most important outputs from C4 EDGE will be a paper that actually defines what Australian industry is capable of doing right now and what Australian industry could be able to do in the future with the right level of investment to deliver a full sovereign outcome.
“I think what the demonstration will show is that Aus- tralian industry is capable right now of delivering 80-90
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