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SA is number two base for German high-tech sensor company

13th November 2015

By: Keith Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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German-based Airbus DS Electronics and Border Security, currently a business unit of Airbus Defence and Space (itself part of Airbus Group) has its biggest foreign operation in South Africa.

“Our second biggest site is in South Africa,” highlighted company media relations senior manager Lothar Belz. “It’s our second biggest footprint and of course we want to grow it.” The South African operation is composed of two entities: Airbus Defence and Space (DS) Optronics South Africa (SA) and GEW Technologies (Tech – previously Grintek Ewation). Both companies have local shareholders. Denel owns 30% of Airbus DS Optronics SA, while the Kunene Finance Company holds 25% of GEW Tech. Both the South African operations have achieved Level 4 black economic empowerment.

Airbus DS Electronics and Border Security came into being as a separate entity on October 1. It was set up as part of the Airbus Group’s decision to spin off its equipment businesses, including electronics. Airbus Group intends finding a partner for its new subsidiary and turn it into a joint venture. “It’s a very profitable business,” pointed out Belz. “It will be more profitable when the entity can supply other aerospace groups. We will remain a major supplier to Airbus Group, but we won’t be in-house.”

One of the companies, Optronics SA, is descended from Cumulus. “I think what made Cumulus famous in the early years was its stabilised sights,” noted director sales: East and Southern Africa Thomas Lutz. It was well known for its turret-mounted LEO airborne optronics airborne system. This is still in service and produced by its successor company today, having been continually upgraded. The current version is the LEO-III HD (high definition). It was, perhaps, even more famous for developing one of the first helmet-mounted sighting systems in the world. Again, the company continues to be involved in this field. Optronics SA employs about 300 people, of whom some 33% are engineers. Its annual turnover is some €50-million.

GEW Tech is one of less than a handful of South African companies able to design electronic warfare (EW) systems, as well as produce them. It operates in the areas of EW, electronic spectrum monitoring (a largely civilian application) and security systems. With regard to the last, it covers everything from bank security to border security.

Airbus DS Electronics and Border Security operates mainly in the radar, avionics and EW sectors, with optronics – which is highly complementary to radar – as an important secondary focus. “Radar is at the core of intelligence and information gathering,” affirmed Belz. “It’s considered so by the German Ministry of Defence. Radar is the only technology that provides, day or night, or in any weather, the precise location of a target.” (In radar jargon, any contact is a target, whether it is hostile or friendly, military or civilian.) “Radar is an indispensable source of independent information for every government.

“Radar is a way of gathering information. But it is only one way of gathering information,” elucidated Lutz. “Radar basically sends out energy, which bounces off a target and is returned to the antenna. One of the key benefits of radar is that it is all-weather. You might have some attenuation at long distances due to rain, but that is insignificant in comparison to the attenuation suffered by other types of sensor due to rain. The other benefit of radar is that it is multiplatform. Radar is very, very, versatile. But radar is not the answer to everything; it is limited by vegetation, for example.”

Optronics complements radar in a number of ways. For example, in a number of important applications, while radar detects targets, it is an optronics system that is used to precisely identify them. This is why optronics and radar systems can be placed alongside each other on the same mounting.

Keith Campbell visited Airbus DS Electronics and Border Security in Ulm, Germany, as a guest of the company.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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