The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa and the National Defence University of Malaysia (NDUM) signed a Memorandum of Agreement on 16 April 2014 to establish a joint Centre of Excellence in radar and sensor technology, electronic warfare and network centric warfare.

The CSIR and NDUM agreed to join forces on research and development (R&D) capabilities over a 10-year period. The centre will be based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

NDUM Vice-Chancellor, General Tan Sri Dato Seri Panglima Haji Zulkifli bin Haji Zainal Abidin, says, “This collaboration will support national capability development in Malaysia, in the areas of radar and sensors, electronic warfare and network centric warfare through the platform of NDUM.  NDUM is honoured to work with the CSIR, which is internationally recognised as an R&D organisation with expertise in the fields of defence and security. We are confident that this strategic partnership will lead to other spin-offs in the defence and security sector.”

“The CSIR has a long track record in radar and optronic sensors and electronic warfare and looks forward to collaborating on a sustainable number of academic and joint research and development programmes,” comments Laurens Cloete, CSIR interim executive director at CSIR Defence, Peace, Safety and Security, representing the CSIR at the 14th Defence Services Asia exhibition and conference. The proposed new centre is intended to create knowledge and skills in the agreed areas of expertise, and perform defence R&D for the Malaysian security forces. “Ultimately, the objective of our collaboration with NDUM is to contribute to the development of Malaysia’s high-technology defence capabilities through skills and research facilities development, new intellectual property and the commercialisation of high potential technologies,” continues Cloete.

The centre will initiate and perform flagship technology demonstrator programmes and it aims to attract, develop and retain talented R&D professionals to represent a national competence in advanced applications-oriented engineering research.

“We want it to be the seed around which a critical mass of R&D capability and high-level skills will be built. International collaboration such as this demonstrates South African capability and benefits the local R&D community by ensuring we remain competitive on the international stage,” says Cloete.

The establishment of the centre is the result of ongoing efforts of collaboration between South Africa and Malaysia.

R&D focus areas

As a multi-disciplinary organisation, the CSIR is able to contribute to the development and success of the centre from diverse research and technology capabilities.

The radar and sensor element will focus on imaging and related technologies; target identification; advanced search and track technologies; beam-steering and active-phased array research; synthetic aperture radar; persistent wide area surveillance on land, sea and air targets; as well as software modelling and simulation.

Priority areas in electronic warfare are electronic self-protection, static or dynamic target signature measurement, electronic support measures and instrumentation for electronic warfare ranges for measurement and evaluation.

As far as network centric warfare is concerned, the focus will be on interoperability, data fusion, extraction of intent and data dissemination, capability management and information warfare.

In the first months, the establishment of the centre’s structure will be the main focus. It will be headed by a director and working committees. It is hoped to be fully operational by 2016.

Cloete concludes that ultimately, “The CSIR and NDUM want to establish and grow a capability in the design and development of advanced defence subsystems and systems, and undertake challenging projects; deliver results and outcomes that have impact on the stakeholders in both countries; and show utility for users.”