DCNS-led SISMARIS project granted French government funding

The DCNS-led SISMARIS* R&D project was launched to further the development of a complete information system and associated technologies for extended surveillance and analysis of maritime traffic. The future system will continuously track all types of vessels at up to 400 km from the coast, compared to the range of 24 km achieved with the world’s most advanced systems today. The 36-month SISMARIS project has a total budget of €6.8 million. On 10 March 2009, the project was granted funding under the Fonds Unique Interministériel** scheme, set up to support collaborative R&D projects under the French government’s competitiveness clusters initiative. SISMARIS will involve the progressive installation of a demonstration platform in the Toulon area from mid-2010 to mid-2011. Located at Saint-Mandrier and Île du Levant, this platform will offer the capability to conduct surveillance over a large section of the western Mediterranean. The project is an opportunity for DCNS, innovation-driven small companies and scientific laboratories to apply their defence know-how to issues of civil security. In particular, sophisticated decision-support algorithms will be utilised to detect abnormal vessel behaviour indicating situations of distress at sea that could lead to human or environmental disasters or suspect situations linked to terrorism, piracy, illegal immigration or illegal fishing. The SISMARIS project has been endorsed by the PACA*** maritime cluster. It involves 14 partners, 10 of which are members of the cluster: Five major companies: DCNS, Sopra group, Rockwell Collins, Thales Alenia Space, CLS Six SMEs: Pegase Systems, Ecomer, Chrisar Software Technologies, Sofresud, Intuilab, Fidens Three scientific laboratories: Onera, Armines, IRIT *Système d’Information et de Surveillance MARitime pour l’Identification des comportements Suspects (maritime information and surveillance system for the identification of suspect behaviour) **Single interministerial fund ***Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur About DCNS The DCNS Group is one of Europe's leading players on the world market for naval defence systems. To meet customer demands for more comprehensive and integrated systems, DCNS acts as prime contractor for naval shipbuilding, integration and support by combining its own development, marketing and production capabilities with those of selected partners. To manage the complexity of such projects, the Group draws on in-house expertise in naval architecture and systems engineering, ship assembly and integration and equipment design and production, as well as through-life support. The DCNS Group employs 13,000 people and generates annual revenues of around €2.8 billion.