South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has agreed to set up a joint centre of excellence (CoE) for radar and sensor technology with the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM). The memorandum of agreement covering this was signed by the two institutions on April 16. Under the terms of the MoA, the CSIR and NDUM will cooperate in research and development (R&D) for ten years. Research will also be conducted in the areas of electronic warfare (EW) and networkcentric warfare. The new CoE will be situated in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

“The CSIR has a long track record in radar and optronic sensors and electronic warfare and looks forward to collaborating on a sustainable number of academic and joint research and development programmes,” observed CSIR Defence, Peace, Safety and Security interim executive director Laurens Cloete. “Ultimately, the objective of our collaboration with NDUM is to contribute to the development of Malaysia’s high- technology defence capabilities through skills and research facilities development, new intellectual property and the commercialisation of high potential technologies.”

“This collaboration will support national capability development in Malaysia in the areas of radar and sensors, electronic warfare and network centric warfare through the platform of NDUM,” explained university vice chancellor General Tan Sri Dato Seri Panglima Haji Zulkifli bin Haji ZainalAbidin. “NDUM is honoured to work with the CSIR, which is internationally recognised as an R&D organisation with expertise in the fields of defence and security. We are confident that this strategic partnership will lead to other spin-offs in the defence and security sector.”

Regarding radar and other sensors, the joint CoE will focus on synthetic aperture radar, research into beam-steering and active phased arrays, persistent wide area surveillance on land, at sea and in the air, imaging and related technologies, advanced search and track technologies and target identification. Regarding EW, the priorities will be electronic self-protection, electronic support measures, static or dynamic target signature measurement and measurement and evaluation instrumentation for electronic warfare ranges. In the area of networkcentric warfare, research will be centred on capability management, data fusion, extraction of intent and data dissemination, information warfare and interoperability.

The creation of the CoE is a result of continuing activities to develop collaboration between the two countries. Its initial focus will be on the setting up of the CoE, which will be led by a director and working committees. It is intended that it will be fully operational by 2016. Once in operation, it will undertake ‘flagship’ programmes to develop technology demonstrators. It is also intended to attract, and then develop and retain, R&D specialists, to establish “a national competence in advanced applications-orientated engineering research”, in the words of the CSIR press release. The CoE will develop knowledge and skills and carry out defence R&D for Malaysia’s armed forces. The multidisciplinary CSIR will be able to support the Centre from a number of its R&D and technology areas.

“We want it to be the seed around which a critical mass of R&D capability and high-level skills will be built,” affirmed Cloete. “International collaboration such as this demonstrates South African capability and benefits the local R&D community by ensuring we remain competitive on the international stage . . . The CSIR and NDUM want to establish and grow a capability in the design and development of advanced defence subsystems and systems and undertake challenging projects and deliver results and outcomes that have impact on the stakeholders in both countries and show utility for users.”