What is Airbus’s offering in the field of land-based border security, now that many of the systems originally developed by Airbus have been transferred to new company Hensoldt?

 

Globally, Airbus is well-known as a leader in the design and production of commercial aircraft, and this is indeed true. However, Airbus is also a leading provider of tanker, combat, transport and mission aircraft, and not only that: it is also one of the most important companies in the security industry, in terms of both land and maritime solutions. Through its security solutions business, Airbus secures nations, borders, companies and critical national infrastructures, and makes our oceans safer.

 

Airbus is a very dynamic company, which is continuously looking for new opportunities, always in evolution, trying to adapt its products and services in order to provide a better and more customised solution to its customers. In February 2017, Airbus completed the divestment of its Defence Electronics unit to KKR, which represented another major step forward in the strategic rationalisation of Airbus. The Defence Electronics activity was renamed and became Hensoldt. Today, Airbus remains a key player not only in the field of border security, but also in critical national infrastructure, as well as land and maritime security, among others. After streamlining our portfolio we were well positioned with a clear focus on smarter products, more service-based offerings and accelerating digital innovation. This is a direct response to evolving market demands, as customers from all over the world have told us about their need to enhance their situational awareness picture with actionable intelligence. Therefore, industry is required to focus on providing holistic solutions rather than installing and maintaining sensor networks. Airbus offers a clear competitive advantage to the market here, as it can leverage existing capabilities in a multitude of domains, ranging from aerial assets such as the Zephyr high-altitude pseudo satellite and maritime patrol aircraft such as the C295, to satellite imagery linked to command and control capabilities via a secured means of connectivity. In addition, Airbus invests heavily in its machine-learning capabilities to analyse available real-time and non-real-time data, with the aim of creating actionable intelligence, which offers customer benefits other than the mere fusion of sensors.

 

That said, Airbus continues to evolve in a business environment where partnerships with other companies are necessary to continue our growth in a highly competitive world. Airbus seeks to partner with other players in the security industry, focusing primarily on data-driven services and intelligence capabilities. Partnering with other companies, Airbus is better positioned than ever before to offer smarter solutions for protecting borders and critical national infrastructures, for example. In short, we are now better positioned to protect people’s ways of life.

 

What experience does Airbus have in this arena and what do you think Airbus can offer that makes it a primary partner for border security agencies?

 

Airbus has many years of experience in the security industry. The company contributes to the defence and security of nations, including both land and maritime borders, through its strong capabilities in military aircraft, intelligence, security solutions and growing capabilities in cyber security. With several projects delivered and ongoing to provide border security capabilities in Europe and the Middle East, covering more than 10,000 km of land and sea border, Airbus can rely on extensive experience in providing complex systems in different environments. In addition, in the maritime security segment, Airbus has been supporting maritime missions for almost 50 years. Airbus’s real-time systems are already monitoring the main hot spots of maritime traffic around the Earth, such as the Panama and Suez Canals, Gibraltar, the Strait of Hormuz or the Strait of Malacca.

 

Based upon proprietary commercial access to the most comprehensive range of Earth observation satellites, Airbus’s surveillance capacities extend from coastal areas to open seas, providing key information to optimise operations at sea. Airbus’s space technologies also have an increasing impact on people’s daily lives – from deep-space exploration and scientific missions to today’s most reliable secure telecommunications and Earth observation satellites.

 

Can you provide some real examples?

 

Spationav in France is one of our major contracts in the maritime field. Through this contract, we provide real-time decision-making tools to help authorities monitor coastal maritime areas and respond quickly and appropriately to threats and incidents. Nineteen of the Spationav system’s semaphores fully cover the French Mediterranean coast, and a further 40 the French Atlantic coast and English Channel, as well as some French offshore territories (Mayotte, Antilles and French Guyana). Merging data from different sensors and using analytics based on two decades of maritime experience, the system delivers maritime situation awareness of French coasts to several governmental agencies for various maritime surveillance purposes – including search and rescue, environmental protection, and the fight against illegal fishing, in addition to normal coast-guard and customs needs. Spationav is already a key contributor to EUROSUR, and with version 2, it is possible to exchange tracks as needed with neighboring coastal systems in both directions. For more than two years, Airbus has also been successfully handling an MRO contract on behalf of the French Navy, which operates the system around the clock. This contract covers 6,000 km of coastline, the tracking of 5,000 ships per minute and the integration of 70 radar systems, 40 AIS, 60 RDF, MPA and mobile stations.

 

Another good maritime example can be found in Morocco. At Tanger Med port, Airbus provides an advanced, fully integrated system encompassing radars and long-range cameras, perimeter intruder detection for the port, video surveillance, access control and vessel tracking through our VTS solutions. We also provide secure communication networks and control rooms from where the whole system is monitored and operated – and bear in mind that Tanger Med is likely the largest sea port in Africa and the Mediterranean Sea.

 

Malaysia, Germany, China, Ecuador, Portugal and Estonia are also counted among our customers. Our figures speak for themselves: 45,000 kilometres of coast are secured by our coastal surveillance systems, with 210 maritime surveillance systems delivered in 55 countries.

 

Our experience with border agencies is not limited to the maritime environment. In Romania, for example, Airbus protects the longest European Union land border against illegal migration, smuggling, trafficking and terrorism, while providing increased national security for Romanian citizens. This is all achieved through an integrated border system comprising surveillance, command and control, and communication capabilities, allowing us to secure 1,807 kilometres of external land border.

 

Airbus’s experience and know-how have without a doubt helped the company become a leader in this sector.

 

Airbus has considerable experience in maritime security solutions, but what specific systems and experience can Airbus bring to coastal security in particular, but also to the wider maritime domain?

 

As already mentioned, Airbus is a key player in the maritime sector with 50 years of experience supporting maritime missions. It provides a complete range of solutions, services and products which are able to address all the customers’ needs in the field of maritime security. No competitors offer the same comprehensive range in their maritime portfolio, encompassing maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters, drones, coastal surveillance systems, smart intelligence centres, satellite imagery, big data, and much more. In short, Airbus has the ability to respond to multiple scenarios, and is committed to going above and beyond in the maritime field.

 

At the beginning of 2018 Signalis, which was founded in 2011 had previously been a joint venture between Airbus and Atlas Elektronik, was fully integrated into Airbus; this was an important step forward for us in the maritime business. This move was in response to Airbus’s growing interest in serving the maritime surveillance market as a whole. Airbus decided to integrate the subsidiary in line with its ‘one brand’ strategy to ensure customer satisfaction and grow the Maritime Security business. Styris is the maritime security product family within the former Signalis aimed at the maritime safety and security business. Styris comprises Vessel Traffic Services, Coastal Surveillance Systems for border security enforcement on behalf of governments, detection of illicit activities, such as smuggling, trafficking, piracy and terrorism and critical infrastructure protection, protecting onshore and offshore maritime critical infrastructures such as liquefied natural gas terminals, offshore oil and gas platforms or offshore wind farms.

 

Critical infrastructure protection has a lot in common with border security in terms of sensors and surveillance; what is Airbus offering in this market?

 

Of course, these areas have a lot in common and Airbus has the expertise and in-depth know-how to address global solutions for global scenarios comprising different systems. Airbus designs, develops and implements integrated systems including platforms and services across national, regional and local levels, aimed at the full range of critical national infrastructure sites and facilities. We protect government installations, airbases and military sites, ports and airports and sensitive industrial sites.

 

We offer a full range of options to our customers, from the design and installation of an integrated system, through to the provision of a fully managed security system, where we not only design and install the security system, but also maintain and operate it for the client, over long periods, sometimes as long as 20 years. We believe that early engagement with clients in order to fully understand their operating environment is critical, so as to provide a security solution whilst allowing the widest freedom of movement for operations – be that passenger flow in an airport or facilitating straightforward access/exit to staff and other authorised personnel to and from a secure facility.

 

The focus of all of our systems is to provide the operators of the protected facility with the very best situational awareness of that site, and to provide them with actionable intelligence and command and control systems that enable them to respond to threats to the site and manage incidents when they do occur. The main challenge is to guarantee not only the protection of people and property, but also the continuity of activities of vital importance for the nation, including in degraded mode and during crisis management. Airbus’s aim is to maximise the use of the smart tools that we have developed to alert facility operators to potential problems and threats, almost before they harden into real incidents and events.

 

What new security technologies and capabilities is Airbus working on that will make a real difference to the security market and make the world a safer place?

 

Innovation is part of Airbus’s DNA, which means that the company is constantly integrating new technologies into its current portfolio. Airbus already works in many areas of cyber technology, applying artificial intelligence to our solutions in order to holistically exploit all security-relevant information available. Airbus is able to offer a full security solution, i.e. we can support customers’ end-to-end security concepts and solve their challenges, both in the cyber and physical domains.

 

It is also worth mentioning our Airbus High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS), Zephyr. Running exclusively on solar power and flying above the weather and above conventional air traffic, Zephyr systems fill a capability gap and are complementary to satellites, UAVs and fuel-powered aircraft providing affordable, persistent, local satellite-like services. Truly environmentally friendly, Zephyr uses sunlight to fly and recharge its batteries, using no fuel and producing no carbon dioxide. The Airbus Zephyr is so efficient it only needs 150W to fly – that is the power of one light bulb to fly an aircraft. Ideally suited for ‘local persistence’ (ISR – Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance), HAPS have the ability to stay focused on a specific area of interest (which can be hundreds of miles wide) while providing it with satellite-like communications and Earth observation services (with greater imagery granularity) over long periods of time without interruption.

 

Today, borders no longer exist when it comes to threatening people’s way of life, especially in the digital domain. When talking about critical national infrastructure, we are actually facing a security continuum, because attacking individual facilities for energy, production or transportation will have an increasing number of multiple disruptive effects on public order. In the domain of border security, the intentions and whereabouts of suspicious individuals are as important as the authenticity of their identification – whether it’s shown at land borders, seaports or airports. In the near future, the transport of people and goods in all three domains will increase dramatically, which will create two dilemmas for operations: infrastructure usually cannot expand in physical terms as required, and enhancing security while smoothing out operations are actually conflicting demands. We believe that end-to-end awareness and smart flow management is the answer to this. This is why we are investing in machine-learning and artificial-intelligence capabilities for anomaly detection and suspect identification to be applied in the aforementioned domains locally, regionally and globally, making use of all of the assets Airbus can deploy and integrate.