Symetrics Industries and PhotoTelesis Join Forces

Symetrics Industries of Melbourne, Florida, and PhotoTelesis of San Antonio, Texas, have formed a strategic alliance by combining their businesses as wholly owned subsidiaries of a newly formed entity, Symetrics Technology Group. Symetrics and PhotoTelesis will pursue new opportunities offering greater value and capability to their customers.

PhotoTelesis designs, manufactures, and markets high performance, cost effective digital imaging and data communications products for the US Department of Defense, as well as other domestic and international military customers. PhotoTelesis, founded and previously owned by David A. Monroe, is recognized as the industry leader in tactical imagery transmission, and has been for over 19 years.

Symetrics provides engineering, manufacturing, testing, integration and support services for electronic systems of the highest quality for the US DoD, domestic and international commercial and military customers. Founded in 1962, the company has built a track record of superior performance on long-term production contracts for many weapons systems.

“This combination represents a significant strategic positioning for new business opportunities in the defense market,” notes Mitch Garner, Symetrics’ President and CEO. “Symetrics is internationally recognized for its Improved Data Modem (IDM) technology that facilitates digital communications over Combat Net Radios and has worked with PhotoTelesis for several years adding its PRISM™ (Photo Reconnaissance Intel Strike Module) technology to those same IDM products.”

“Both Symetrics’ IDM and the PhotoTelesis® imagery products are flight-proven, ‘off-the-shelf’ systems that facilitate the interconnection to multiple ‘voice-only’ Combat Net Radios to create a multi-path, digital and imagery communications architecture,” explains Ron Ford, President of PhotoTelesis. “This new alliance will be very positive for both our customers and shareholders.

“A recent example of this mutual relationship and technology was a Royal Netherlands Air Force contract for 120 sets of PRISM™ modules, cockpit control units for the fleet of F-16 aircraft, modification kits for the IDM-302, ground station equipment, and technical support. Program success was verified by significant positive feedback coming from the pilots deployed to Afghanistan. The equipment provides real-time imagery sharing between aircraft and ground based command centers.”

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Boeing Buys Symetrics’ Next Generation IDM-501 for Turkish Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWC) Program - Real-time Digital Communications Offers Improved Situational Awareness in the Cockpit

Symetrics Industries, LLC, announced that it has been awarded a delivery order contract from Boeing valued at more than $375,000 to manufacture and deliver fifteen Next Generation Improved Data Modems (IDM-501), to support the Turkish Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEWC) Program, Peace Eagle, which operates on the military variant of the Boeing 737-700 aircraft.

“This award is extremely gratifying for the Symetrics team. We feel honored by Boeing’s confidence in Symetrics’ twelve years of IDM expertise and experience, and their recognition of the advanced capabilities of the IDM-501,” notes Mitch Garner, Symetrics’ President and CEO. “The IDM-501 is the one of newest offerings in Symetrics’ Family of IDM Products, and its employment on the Turkish AEWC will add significant capability to that platform, particularly receipt and transmission of free format text and graphics, in a small and very cost-effective package.” “Boeing selected the IDM-501 for the Turkish Peace Eagle program because of its enhanced functionality, smaller size, light weight, reduced heat, ruggedized design and competitive price, making it ideal for the Peace Eagle application”, explains Ron Frye, Vice President, Business Development, Symetrics. With the delivery order for the Turkish Peace Eagle program, Turkey is the second country to employ the new Symetrics’ IDM-501.

Symetrics’ Family of IDM Products range from the international IDM “standard” - the IDM-302 - to the IDM-501, to single card solutions that can be integrated into airborne mission computers, and to ground stations. All of Symetrics’ IDM aircraft products are flight-proven, “off-the-shelf” systems that facilitate the interconnection of up to four separate "voice-only" radios to create a multi-path, digital communications architecture over existing, on-board Combat Net Radios (VHF/UHF/HF).

The IDM-501 (also known as “IDM-Junior”) enhances warfighter mission success by improving the speed and accuracy of communications and coordination during independent air-to-air operation, as well as combined and joint air-to-ground and ground-to-air operations. With the IDM-501, while in flight , combat pilots can receive digital data on targets derived from sensors on satellites, UAVs, other aircraft and/or ground stations. The system provides real-time information in the cockpit or at the airborne workstation, thereby improving target ID/hits, reducing pilot exposure to threats, and elimination of collateral damage.

In 2002, Symetrics was awarded a contract to deliver its MD-1295/A Improved Data Modem (IDM-302) to Aselsan Corporation, Turkey, for integration into the Turkish Land Forces (TLF) UH-60 Blackhawk and AH-1 Cobra helicopter fleets, as part of a TLF upgrade program. Some of the Symetrics’ IDM-302s were the PRISM™-IDMs. PRISM™ stands for Photo Recon Intel Strike Module, and is a single plug-and-play circuit card that adds imagery capability to the IDM-302’s ability to receive and transmit voice and digital information. The United Kingdom’s Jaguar fleet also employs Symetrics’ PRISM™-IDMs. The Next Generation IDM-501 provides all the functionality of the IDM-302 (PRISM™ version), but it is half the size, half the “footprint,” half the weight and half the heat of the IDM-302, and it also costs less.

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RNLAF F-16 Deploy to Afghanistan with Symetrics’ PRISM-IDM

RNLAF F-16 Deploy to Afghanistan with Symetrics’ PRISM-IDM

Symetrics Industries announced today that the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF) F-16 aircraft have recently deployed to Afghanistan to support coalition operations with the new Photo Reconnaissance Intel Strike Module (PRISMTM) installed in their MD-1295: Improved Data Modem (IDM-302). The PRISMTM allows the pilot to capture, compress/decompress and transmit/receive frames of video information over existing VHF/UHF Combat Net Radios for the purposes of supporting “on-the-fly” mission changes and battle damage assessment (BDA).

This new imagery transmission capability for the F-16 was made possible by two contract awards from the RNLAF to Symetrics for a total value of approximately $3.0M. These contracts were for the procurement of 120 shipsets of PRISMTM modules and cockpit control units for the fleet of RNLAF F-16 aircraft, modification kits for the IDM-302, ground station equipment, and technical support. The modifications to the aircraft and the IDM-302 were and will continue to be performed by the In-country F-16 Depot for the RNLAF.

The utility and added advantage of the PRISMTM for the warfighter in combat operations was recently described in these After Action comments provided by a RNLAF pilot following action in May of this year in Afghanistan:

“ In the morning, a Dutch convoy was attacked in north Afghanistan during a patrol. A bomb had exploded next to a vehicle, and two man were injured and were being taken directly to the hospital. The F-16s were just landing from their morning sortie when the “Alpha scramble” arrived from headquarters. The tasking was to be airborne ASAP and give top cover over incident area.

At Operations, a Powerpoint slide with the scramble information and two satellite images of the area from Intelligence were assembled. After the aircraft had completed their refueling and were airborne again, Operations transmitted the Powerpoint slide and the satellite images to both pilots via the PRISM over the existing onboard radios.

Over the incident area the pilots captured images with the PRISM of the vehicle, the surrounding area, the vehicle recovery operation, and the some of the force protection that was in the area. These images were then sent back “over-the-air” to Operations, who then sent the images via secure e-mail to Headquarters, where they were received while the aircraft were still airborne.”

The imagery functionality of the Symetrics’ PRISM can be easily inserted into all configurations of Symetrics’ Family of IDM products (LRU or single CCA). In all instances, the equipment is completely interoperable with the entire family of other PhotoTelesis imagery products that are found around the world. A unique attribute of the PRISM is that unlike other systems that advertise that they perform imagery (when in fact they are merely transferring image files), is that the PRISM performs the entire range of imagery functions, like capture, crop and compression before transmitting.

“Just as Network Centric Warfare (NWC) describes the evolutionary concept of applying new Information Age technologies to meet the needs and requirements of today’s and future Warfighters, the Symetrics’ PRISM-IDM represents a manifestation of this concept by increasing warfighting capabilities by an order of magnitude,” said Mitch Garner, Symetrics’ President and CEO. “This order by the RNLAF represents their recognition that having imagery transmission capability in-the-cockpit for the warfighter is a requirement and not a luxury, and Symetrics appreciates the opportunity to provide this advanced capability at an extremely affordable price.”

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