ABSTRACT
As threats evolve and the future operating environment becomes more uncertain, sovereign capability is becoming more important as government industry policy development focuses increasingly on the local industry capability to deliver force flexibility and bridge the C4 divide between the Australian Defence Force, Australian Emergency Services and Regional partners.
To date, land C4 has been delivered by large overseas-controlled companies generally with expensive and complex C4 products - developed by foreign nations to meet their unique operational requirements - with restrictive operational, form factor and maintenance covenants that constrain the Australian Defence Force’s use of the system. Recent whole of government support operations ranging from regional tsunami support to the 2019/20 Christmas bushfire support, along with operational lessons from combat operations, highlighted that Defence needed more control and flexibility in its C4 system without compromising security and interoperability.
This update describes Australian Industry’s response to the Sovereign C4 challenge to support an Army-in-Motion without compromising security or interoperability, whilst at the same time moving the Defence organisation forward into the next-generation of network and computing solution aligned with Australian Generic Soldier and Vehicle Architectures.
BIOGRAPHY
Matthew Jones joined EOS Defence Systems in May 2020 as the General Manager Land C4I. He has lead responsibility for the C4 EDGE Australian Industry collaboration and EOS Defence System’s new counter unmanned systems product development program – Titanis. He has 30 years’ experience in Military, Defence and Defence Industry as a senior capability analyst / program manager, working in high security environments, leading both small and large teams with experience in national security, systems integration, strategy, human resource management, training and policy development. Matthew is a military veteran with extensive operational experience in the Middle East.