Automating Naval Warfare
Samsung Thales Making Name in Combat Systems
By JUNG SUNG-KI
Published: 13 April 2009
SEOUL - As South Korea develops high-tech armed forces suited to network-centric warfare, Samsung Thales Corp. (STC) hopes to play a greater role in that effort - and double its annual sales to 1 trillion won ($723 million).
As South Korea's leading maker of naval combat systems, the company, based here, offers military electronics products that it has designed or adapted from foreign technologies. STC is now aiming to export products to help revive the country's economy and broaden its own market, said Byun Seung-wan, STC's senior vice president.
"Over the past three decades ... our firm has obtained indigenous cutting-edge technologies that can successfully compete in the global market," Byun said.
STC is a joint venture between South Korea's Samsung industrial group and Thales, the French electronics giant. It dates from 1978, when its predecessor, Samsung Aerospace, entered the defense market.
In 1991, the firm was transferred to Samsung Electronics, the flagship of the Samsung group and one of the world's largest manufacturers of semiconductors and consumer electronics, such as TVs, DVD players and digital cameras.
The defense electronics operation was re-established as STC in 2000 with an investment from Thales. Today, STC has three French executives and is capitalized at 270 billion won; Thales has invested nearly half that amount.
The firm has grown more than 10 percent per year since 2000, and over the last three years has grown 12 percent annually, said Kim Youn-ki, a company spokesman. STC's annual sales in the same period have topped 550 billion won, with 2008 sales reaching 580 billion won, he said. The company aims to take that figure to 1 trillion won by 2012.
"Samsung Thales is an exemplary model of a South Korean firm that has successfully developed and produced cutting-edge technologies on its own by integrating foreign technologies," said Kim Byung-hwan, an executive director of the Korea Defense Industry Association. "We highly expect the firm to spearhead the country's sales of defense systems and software in overseas markets soon."
STC's potential products for overseas sales include tactical communications and data link equipment, radar systems, electro-optical gear and up-to-date combat systems for ships and ground vehicles, said Byun, the company's senior vice president.
"In particular, we've got a solid and proven infrastructure foundation for communications systems-related technologies, and are very confident in their overseas sales," Byun said, referring to the Tactical Information Communication Network (TICN). The network is scheduled to be operational with the South Korean Army by 2012.
STC has served as a main developer of TICN, an advanced digital command-and-control and sensor-to-shooter battlefield system. TICN is to replace the Army's SPIDER communications system, co-developed by STC and the state-funded Agency for Defense Development (ADD), over the next four to five years in a 4 trillion won project.
Data Processing at Sea
Byun said STC's naval combat systems are drawing keen attention from other nations. Some Southeast Asian countries have shown interest in one developed for the South Korean Navy's 14,000-ton Dokdo Landing Platform Helicopter (LPH 6111) vessel commissioned in 2007, he said.
Naval combat systems automate target detection, tracking, threat assessment and weapon control. The system guides these functions simultaneously for efficient execution, allowing combat operations to be carried out by fewer crew members.
About two years ago, STC completed the five-year Landing Platform Experimental (LPX) combat system, in cooperation with the ADD, based on expertise gathered from its development of combat systems for the South Korean Navy's KDX-I/II destroyers, frigates and patrol ships.
In the LPX program, STC was the prime contractor for the integration and development of the command support and the command and fire-control system.
STC's latest naval combat system is being installed in the Navy's Patrol Killer, Guided Missile (PKG) class of high-speed vessels. The lead ship was commissioned in December after 19 months of sea trials.
The integrated surface-to-air/anti-ship/fire-control system, co-developed with the Agency for Defense Development, involves three-dimensional radar, tracking radar and electro-optical tracking devices. It enables the patrol killer ship to simultaneously detect and track up to 100 aerial and surface targets and to engage multiple targets.
STC's combat system activities date from 1986, when it began producing the WSA-423 fire-control system under license from Britain's BAE Systems, which developed the system.
The South Korean firm produced key hardware for the WSA-423, such as control consoles, mission consoles, and surveillance and tracking radars, and it conducted tests and system integration.
In the early 1990s, STC localized related technologies and further improved them when it participated in the development of naval combat systems for the South Korean Navy's three 3,100-ton KDX-I light destroyers, six 4,500-ton KDX-II destroyers and two 7,600-ton KDX-III Aegis destroyers.
Submarine Project
STC is now competing with LIG Nex1, another South Korean electronic systems maker, for the 2 trillion won program to supply combat systems for the Navy's upcoming KSS-III submarines, and subsequent export of the systems.
The country's defense procurement agency is scheduled to announce the final bidder this month. Three 3,000-ton submarines will be built beginning in 2018 under the 2.5 trillion won KSS-III project.
STC plans soon to unveil a prototype of its advanced submarine combat system, under development for four years, company officials said. The combat system also could be installed in the Navy's new 2,300-ton FFX-I-class frigates, scheduled to begin service in 2011. ■
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