How SYNAPS is accelerating Collaborative Combat

An enemy attack suddenly targets a unit searching for insurgents.

Facing strong opposition, the ground commander calls for helicopter fire support to neutralize the adversary. But, before the helicopter can arrive, a second source of insurgent fire opens up from a position ninety degrees away from the first.

How to successfully coordinate forces on the ground and in the air, to disseminate time critical alerts so that adjacent friend units can immediately take their own protection measures, to reconfigure and lead the manoeuvre, and respond in real-time to such an unpredictable and continuously-changing situation?

 If ever there was a moment for collaborative combat among   land units, but also air and naval units, this is it. And that’s where SYNAPS from Thales comes in with a real breakthrough. SYNAPS the first software-defined radio which not only enables collaborative combat but actually accelerates the tempo of the manoeuvre through real-time sharing of the battlefield’s tactical situation. This information feeds C4I applications and artificial intelligence algorithms in order to provide in real time optimal response choices to the ground commander.

Information superiority on the battlefield is the critical factor for collaborative combat that it is swift, effective and decisive, says Franck Boulery, Product Line Manager.

That is precisely what SYNAPS Thales’ delivers; it can reduce decision-making time from minutes to just a few seconds. And the SYNAPS system can be gradually phased in, into the forces, with re-use of current hardware, and so natively protecting current customer investments in PR4G Fastnet tactical radios.

The new SYNAPS family of tactical SDR radios displays a number of advantages that are key to battlefield superiority, each of them featuring cyber-secured and resilient radio connectivity including multiples command voices sessions, communities of interest, position location information, chat, email and video.

 SYNAPS offers transverse and geographical exchanges that break down silos to share tactical situation awareness in real time, essential to avoiding friendly fire and assuring that all enemy threats are shared immediately by all once detected by any unit.

Franck Boulery concludes, “Thales experience behind SYNAPS is one big reason why we are the trusted partner for more than fifty armies’ tactical radios worldwide. We believe that tomorrow C4I systems will be collaborative, joint and highly flexible, precisely what SYNAPS can offer without requiring the user to choose between security and performance. So, like the body’s own nerve cell synapses, SYNAPS is the ideal tactical radio system for the necessary digital transformation on the battlefield”.