PARIS -- a4ESSOR S.A.S (Alliance for ESSOR), a multi-national joint venture to develop European Secure Software-Defined Radio (ESSOR) technology, has achieved formal acceptance for its High Data Rate (HDR) Base Waveform, which has been developed under the ESSOR OC1 (European Secure SOftware defined Radio - Operational Capability 1) contract signed with OCCAR (Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en matière d'ARmement).

a4ESSOR is a joint venture between Bittium (Finland), Indra (Spain), Leonardo (Italy), Radmor (Poland), Rohde & Schwarz (Germany) and Thales (France). The joint venture is responsible for managing industrial activities under the ESSOR program and coordinating the partners' work.

Formal acceptance of the ESSOR High Data Rate Base Waveform is in addition to successful acceptance tests at Leonardo's laboratories in Pisa last November and formal quality acceptance. It rewards two and a half years of development work, involving all ESSOR industry partners.

a4ESSOR's partners will be porting the ESSOR HDR Base Waveform to their respective software defined radios (SDR) as part of the next phase of the project. Final interoperability tests between the partners' radios will complete the ESSOR OC1 project, with the release of improved and up-to-date ESSOR Target Waveforms, ready to deploy in the operational field.

The achieved milestone not only confirms the maturity of the ESSOR technology, but it also demonstrates that cooperation, among different countries and among different companies, is a key element in the enhancement of European products and the competitiveness of European industries in the global communication market.

The ESSOR program was launched in 2009, under the umbrella of the European Defence Agency (EDA). The goal of the program is to develop software-defined radio architecture and the new coalition ESSOR HDR WF in order to facilitate interoperability between European armed forces.

Source: Thales