South Korean defense company LIG Nex1 has awarded two contracts to HENSOLDT to supply 20 Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR) 2000 ID secondary radars, test equipment and related services.
The Identification-Friend-or-Foe (IFF) system will support the IFF modernization program of the South Korean Armed Forces. The systems will be integrated into a number of coastal surveillance and air surveillance radars to improve their ability to distinguish hostile from friendly forces.
IFF systems, or Secondary Surveillance Radars (SSR), precisely identify aircraft by automatically sending interrogation signals which are answered by so-called transponders on-board friendly aircraft. Therefore, IFF enables field commanders to quickly distinguish friendly from hostile forces and helps avoid friendly fire incidents.
The integration will upgrade the radar systems from NATO Mode 4 to the new Mode 5 standard, which employs sophisticated encryption techniques to avoid hostile signal manipulation, ensuring that the identification process is reliable and secure. Mode 5 is in the process of being introduced in all western armies as a precondition of joint operations of U.S./NATO and allied forces.
HENSOLDT is already under contract to modernize German, French and British Armed Forces’ IFF systems to the Mode 5 standard.
