South Korean Military Receives HENSOLDT IFF Technology

HENSOLDT will bring its Identification-Friend-or-Foe (IFF) into the upcoming IFF modernization programme of the South Korean armed forces.

The company was awarded by LIG Nex1 two contracts worth approximately €10m to deliver 20 MSSR 2000 ID secondary radars including test equipment and related services.

The IFF 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).

IFF systems, so-called secondary surveillance radars (SSR), precisely identify aircraft by automatically sending interrogation signals which are answered by so-called transponders on-board friendly aircraft. Thus, IFF enables field commanders to quickly distinguish friendly from hostile forces and helps avoiding friendly fire incidents.

Unlike Mode 4 used hitherto, Mode 5 employs sophisticated encryption techniques to avoid hostile signal manipulation, thus ensuring that the identification process is absolutely reliable and secure. “Mode 5” is in the process of being introduced in all western armies as a precondition of joint operations of US/NATO and allied forces.

HENSOLDT is under contract to upgrade German, French and UK armed forces’ IFF systems to the “Mode 5” standard and has delivered IFF systems – including crypto devices - for ground and naval applications of several NATO nations.