Ottawa, June 3, 2009 - Thales has been awarded a $12.5 million Persistence Surveillance Towers System contract by the Government of Canada. The Thales Deployable Integrated Sensors for CompoUnd Security (DISCUS) system, will provide the Canadian Army with the ability to protect personnel against improvised explosive devices through the use of persistent wide area observation, detection, identification and monitoring.

“The DISCUS system gives the Canadian Forces a battle-proven Force Protection system that has been operationally deployed by NATO forces in Afghanistan since 2006“ said Guy Baruchel, President of Thales Canada. “This system includes cartography, radar management and camera
cueing and control capabilities that will enable the early detection of intruders and provide critical information on the potential threat.”
Thales’s DISCUS incorporates a ground based battlefield surveillance radar that provides the first level of situational awareness. The ground radar detects any movement around a compound or area of observation and displays the information on the command and control screen. This information consists of the exact position and automatic identification. The target is assessed in real time by an electro-optical sensor mounted on a tower cued automatically to the target.

The video images are displayed on a graphical user interface. Smart algorithms can be applied to this interface such as Local Adaptive Contrast Enhancement, image stabilization, dynamic super resolution for low contrast conditions and operational aiding tools. All sensors and the graphical user interface are connected to Thales’s SmartNet network; a versatile solution for the different interface standards in the system. The system can support multiple sensors and has a modular infrastructure that allows for other types of sensors such as motion detectors, hostile fire indicators and aerostats.
“In addition to enhanced local protection capabilities, the information provided by the DISCUS system could also be fed into the Land Force Command and Control Information System (LFC2IS) to further enhance the Commanders situational awareness,” added Dave Spagnolo, General Manager, Land and Joint Systems division, Thales Canada. “This contract combined with the recent awarding of the Land Command Support System (LCSS) Software Long-Term Software Support (LTSS) contract to Thales Canada, has positioned us a one of Canada’s premier Battlefield Information Technology and Management Systems providers.”