ANKARA \u2014 Turkey\u2019s largest defense company \u2014 Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret \u2014 has successfully developed the country\u2019s first indigenous identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system, and delivered the first prototypes to the Turkish military.<\/p>\n
Two prototype electronic systems were delivered to the armed forces last month and mark a \u201cfirst-time achievement\u201d for Turkey\u2019s local industry, officials and analysts here said. \u201cThis puts Turkey into a small list of seven countries that have the capabilities to manufacture IFF systems,\u201d Aselsan CEO Cengiz Ergeneman told reporters.<\/p>\n
Aselsan signed a contract with Turkey\u2019s Ministry of National Defense in December 2006 to design, develop and manufacture the prototypes. The contract price for the prototypes is classified.<\/p>\n
The company now awaits a fresh contract with the country\u2019s procurement agency, the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries, for serial production. Aselsan officials said a contract could be signed later this year.<\/p>\n
The prototypes developed by Aselsan passed a final round of performance tests in November. They will be installed on Turkey\u2019s F-4 fighter jets and air defense radars and, at later stages, other aerial and naval platforms \u2014 except F-16 fighter jets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe system is entirely indigenous and marks a first time for the Turkish industry,\u201d said Ceyhun Ozguven, an analyst based here. \u201cThis is certainly a big leap forward in Turkish military electronics.\u201d A procurement official familiar with the program said the production contract would involve scores of Aselsan IFF systems and could go up to $100 million initially. The number will likely rise as more Turkish platforms queue up to be outfitted.<\/p>\n
IFF enables military and national interrogation systems to identify aircraft, vehicles or forces as friendly and to determine their bearing and range from the interrogator. IFF may be used by both military and civilian aircraft. The major military benefits of IFF include preventing \u201cfriendly fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aselsan has developed and produced two IFF prototypes for the Turkish military, both of which are for medium-range coverage. Its transponder IFF systems are to be outfitted on naval and aerial military assets, and the interrogator IFF systems for air defense radars. Aselsan\u2019s two major local subcontractors for the prototype outfitted into an F-4\/E 2020 aircraft were privately owned electronics and telecom concern Netas Telekomunikasyon and Bilgem, an information technologies and advanced technological research center of Turkey\u2019s state scientific research institute, TUBITAK.<\/p>\n
Aselsan, founded in 1975, is owned by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation. With more than 4,200 employees, Aselsan operates under four main departments: communication services; defense systems; radar, electronic warfare and intelligence systems; and microelectronics, guidance and electro-optics.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Aselsan inked an approximately $1 billion contract to sell low- and medium-altitude air defense systems to the Turkish military. This is the largest single contract awarded to a local company in recent years.<\/p>\n
Under that contract, Aselsan is developing all radar, fire control, command-and-control and communications systems for both low- and medium-altitude components of the program. Aselsan also will develop and produce missile heads and data links.<\/p>\n
Aselsan\u2019s market value was at $1 billion in 2011, according to independent auditors. It has a backlog of orders worth $4.3 billion until 2018.<\/p>\n
In 2011, Aselsan reported 1.5 billion Turkish lira ($880 million) in sales, 160.7 million lira in profits and 83 million lira in exports.<\/p>\n
via Top Turkish Firm Develops First Local Friend-or-Foe Gear | Defense News | defensenews.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANKARA \u2014 Turkey\u2019s largest defense company \u2014 Aselsan Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret \u2014 has successfully developed the country\u2019s first indigenous identification friend-or-foe (IFF) system, and delivered the first prototypes to the Turkish military. Two prototype electronic systems were delivered to the armed forces last month and mark a \u201cfirst-time achievement\u201d for Turkey\u2019s local industry, officials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":66059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[846],"tags":[5556,4600,6939],"class_list":["post-68085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-aselsan","tag-defence-industry","tag-iff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}