HF Messenger™: European trials and R&D efforts

This paper focuses on field trials and actual experimental results to describe how Rockwell-Collins France has deployed and intensively tested in Europe the HF Messenger™ software coupled with the new HF high data rate modem, Q9600. The field trials have been made over a permanent HF test bed between Paris and Toulouse, through cooperative tests with government agencies (NATO, DERA) and interoperability tests and actual implementation in the various system environments encountered with French Navy, Italian Navy and BFEM 66 multinational exercise. Performance measured in clear and in secure mode with various crypto devices is presented. Moreover, this paper gives an overview of the R&D efforts in order to show what the research axes are and how the future needs are anticipated with respect to the expected performance of the HF E-mail solution and the evolution of STANAG 5066.