Consultancy becomes partner in testing and conformance in communications system programme
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has appointed technology consultancy Frazer-Nash as testing and conformance partner in its Morpheus Programme to develop a new tactical communication information system.
The system is currently under development with General Dynamics UK as the transition partner to replace the Bowman communication system. It is being built on an open information architecture aimed at giving the MoD greater flexibility in integrating and deploying new capabilities.
Chris McDonald, who is leading the programme work for Frazer-Nash, said: “Open systems architecture is becoming a key user requirement for defence across all platforms and systems. Open approaches reduce through life cost of ownership and enable faster, more agile evolution of capability to meet future needs.
“We are undertaking an assessment of Morpheus’ logical and physical architectures, to ensure the authority’s openness criteria are being met. We are also assessing the logical architecture conformance to confirm that the architecture can be built independently.
“We have already helped identify areas for improvement in the architectures: this has enabled issues to be fixed earlier, avoiding expensive reworking later in the project.”
Morpheus is being led by the Battlefield Tactical Communications and Information Systems Delivery Team in conjunction with Army HQ and Information Systems and Services. It is aimed at improving situational awareness for frontline troops, building a more resilient communications network with increased bandwidth, and providing the MoD with the ability to deliver new applications more quickly.
Image from Defence Images, Armed Forces Corporate Covenant
