Britain’s two new Queen Elizabeth (QE) Class aircraft carriers, now being built in Scotland for the Royal Navy, are to be equipped with TETRA radio networks for on-board communication.

Selex Elsag, a company within the Finmeccanica group, has signed the second phase of a contract with the Aircraft Carrier Alliance (ACA) to manufacture and test the installations. An earlier phase of the agreement provided the design.

When deployed, the TETRA systems will support above-deck aviation teams and below-deck onboard communications for mobile teams and machinery space personnel. Selex Elsag says its TETRA technology is ideal for providing this capability because it is specifically designed for secure emergency services. Each system will support include over 500 handsets.

Via the ACA, Selex Elsag is also supplying the Identification Friend-or-Foe (IFF) system for the QE Class. The ACA is a partnership which brings together the UK Ministry of Defence and the defence manufacturing industry.

Selex Elsag was created on June 1 by a merger between Selex Communications, which is based in Genoa, Italy, and Elsag Datamat, an Italian system integrator also owned by Finmeccanica.