Up to $5 billion will be spent modernizing NORAD’s long-range surveillance of the northern approaches to North American cities, under the Arctic Over The Horizon Radar (A-OTHR) project. To ensure that the federal government knows that a made-in-Canada solution exists for the A-OTHR project, OTHR engineering/manufacturing firm D-TA Systems invited senior government officials to an Industry Event on September 26, 2024.
By James Careless
Held at the Royal Ottawa Golf Course in Gatineau, Quebec, the Industry Event featured presentations by Canadian companies capable of covering all aspects of the A-OTHR project from start to finish. For they record, they are:
- D-TA Systems: OTHR equipment and project prime
- Valcom Manufacturing Group: OTHR antennas
- Technalogix: OTHR power amplifiers
- JSquared: OTHR processing architecture
- RTI: Data distribution and command & control
- Calian: Manufacturing and testing
- ATCO Frontec: Logistics, shelters, and Indigenous participation
D-TA Systems Executive Director Dr. Dipak Roy decided to stage this Industry Event to inform senior federal officials — who were in attendance — about the existence of an affordable, reliable, made-in-Canada A-OTHR solution. “Since 2022, we have attended five major industry day/working group meetings for US OTHR projects: None happened in Canada,” he told CDR. “DND/ISED/PSPC probably has no idea what Canadian capabilities exist related to the multi-billion dollar A-OTHR project. So, I have taken it upon myself to do an industry day to make the RCAF and others aware of what Canada can do for this project, which is extensive.”
Indeed. The rundown provided during the D-TA Systems A-OTHR industry event was detailed and conclusive. A case in point: “Since 2011, we [D-TA Systems] have been involved with probably over 20 OTHR projects, small, big, and otherwise, including two of the largest radar systems in the world,” Dr. Roy told a packed room.
As for the credentials of D-TA Systems’ proposed A-OTHR subcontractors? “Through our partnership with L3Harris, we are working on the Surface Combatant Ship and have a number of antenna spec’ed on that, as well as Polar Icebreaker,” said Howard Tuffnail, President of Valcom Manufacturing Group. “We were fortunate enough to work with D-TA on the previous Polar Over The Horizon Radar contract,” added Technalogix COO Thomas King. “Currently we have around 300 units deployed in the Canadian Arctic.”
“We engineered and built the automated test system for Canadarm2 for MDA,” noted Kevin Harper, Calian’s Director of Business Development for Defence Solutions. “We’re actually now on contract to build the same thing for Canadarm3.”
“We operate coast to coast to coast across Canada, as far north as you can go to CFS Alert,” said ATCO Frontec President Jim Landon. “If you go any further north, they start calling you Santa and asking for presents.”
All told, D-TA Systems made a compelling case for a Canadian-led-and-supplied A-OTHR solution; a fact that seemed to be acknowledged by the serious questions raised by government officials during the Q&A session afterwards. This doesn’t mean that the D-TA Systems group will win the A-OTHR contract when the time comes — but Dr. Dipak Roy has certainly succeeded in making their presence known.
“The big [multinational] primes are always coming here, briefing the government, but we Canadian companies seem to be kind of left out,” Dr. Roy said in an exclusive interview with CDR. “Again, that’s the whole motivation for doing this event today. What I really want to do, when it comes to over the horizon data, is to point out that there are significant Canadian capabilities in this field — and we are just waiting for the opportunity to happen.”
1 thought on “D-TA Systems Pitches Canadian Solution for Arctic Over-The-Horizon Radar Contract”
The decision to go with Australia is somewhat baffling. I can understand reasons for geopolitical reach at this point in time, and the fact that the Australians have experience in developing and operating several OTHRs. But D-TA presented a pretty solid argument for being the Arctic OTHR prime contractor. Without explanation to the public, one wonders what D-TA’s deficiencies were and if there is an opportunity for them to make a major contribution to the Arctic OTHR project. On the surface it appeared to be the classic Canadian defence industry position, looking into a major CAF project from the outside as a foreign firm takes all the marbles, quite contrary to the stated policy of the current federal government. So the question is: was D-TA given serious consideration but lost in a fair competition that considered a Canadian solution first?
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