An Airbus-led industry team has equipped more than sixty vessels of the French Navy with the Réseau Intranet de la Force Aéronavale étape 2 (RIFAN 2) system.
The systems have been equipped on vessels including aircraft carriers, front-line frigates, support ships, patrol craft and submarines.
The RIFAN 2 programme contract, worth around €160 million, was awarded to an industrial group led by Airbus and comprising Naval Group and Rohde & Schwarz as co-contractors.
The RIFAN 2 system has been designed to transmit data with various classification levels, ranging from unprotected to secret and NATO secret. This network transmits data produced by the various applications as well as exchanges data between information systems of theatre chiefs of staff on board a vessel for the duration of an operation.
The system is capable of combining several communication streams in order to optimise the use of limited transmission capacity available at sea. It uses satellite connections, such as Comcept or Syracuse, as well as radio communication resources. Existing radio systems have been refurbished and a new UHF network has been deployed, which now allows all-IP voice and data exchanges between ships, with a range of several tens of kilometres.
RIFAN 2 also provides overall network management and an cybersecurity incident monitoring capability. This monitoring can take place both from an onshore management and control centre, or locally on board the ships.
Future installation is also planned for the Barracuda submarines, which are under construction, the FTI frigates, as well as for the future replenishment tankers of the FLOTLOG programme.
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