Engineering support services

Tender description

The Airfield Radar Integration Project (ARIP) system provides low level radar surveillance coverage across the UK airspace. The ARIP system takes radar data from a number of military and civilian transmitter sites and routes this data via secure Integrated Systems Digital Network (ISDN) lines through a backbone site to the 3 UK Control and Reporting Centres (CRCs) for surveillance operators to utilize for situational awareness. The ARIP system was developed by Cobham Aviation Services as a product called RDSNet and has been in use since 2006. The Airfield Radar Integration Project (ARIP) system provides low level radar surveillance coverage across the UK airspace. The ARIP system takes radar data from a number of military and civilian transmitter sites and routes this data via secure Integrated Systems Digital Network (ISDN) lines through a backbone site to the 3 UK Control and Reporting Centres (CRCs) for surveillance operators to utilize for situational awareness. The ARIP system was developed by Cobham Aviation Services as a product called RDSNet and has been in use since 2006. The current CLS contract expires on 30.9.2016 and there is a need to set up a new contract to ensure ongoing technical support for the system. There is a requirement to extend the CLS contract for a period of 5 years from Q3 2016. The length of the contract is sufficient to address uncertainties over the future migration of the ARIP system into Project Guardian, a future competitive procurement, from 2020 onwards.