L3Harris and ELT Group team up on Italian ISR multi-sensor test facility

BELFAST — L3Harris and electronic warfare (EW) specialist ELT Group are partnering to set up an Italian intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) multi-sensor test facility — a first of its kind built outside the US.

The future facility is one “we think will significantly strengthen the capabilities of Italy to support the calibration and test of systems here in this country, and perhaps even beyond Italy,” Jon Rambeau, president of integrated mission systems at L3Harris, told reporters during a media briefing Thursday.

Due to Italian government restrictions on information sharing, the location of the facility and a timeline for opening it were not shared by company officials, but it will primarily support two high profile programs: EA-37B Compass Call electronic attack aircraft and the Joint Airborne Multi-Mission Multi-Sensor System (JAMMS).

Breaking Defense reported earlier this week that under a $300 million order, Rome has contracted L3Harris to deliver two EA-37B Electronic Attack aircraft, modified from Gulfstream G550 business jets. Separately, in 2021 Italy awarded L3Harris the JAMMS program which similarly involves the production of two G550 platforms equipped with an airborne intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, and electronic warfare (AIRSEW) suite. Those planes are currently undergoing mission systems integration, a spokesperson for L3Harris told Breaking Defense in a statement on Thursday.

“[H]aving this sort of a [multi-sensor testing] capability here in Italy will allow these [EA-37B and JAMMS] aircraft to be sustained and calibrated on a regular basis without having to leave the country,” said Rambeau. “So from a strategic and from a programmatic point of view, it was a sensible thing for Italy to have.” He shared that additional aircraft types and other naval or ground systems could also be tested at the new multi-sensor plant.

In the US, L3Harris operates a 100-acre multi-sensor flight test facility in Greenville, Texas, that specializes in EW, reconnaissance, communication systems, flight testing and training, alongside threat simulation from various emitters, according to company literature.

The forthcoming Italian facility “will leverage directly the work that we’ve done in Greenville and our expertise there, and allow for, obviously, some transfer of knowledge and technology to ELT Group,” added Rambeau.

Resources within the facility will include “an array of various types of antennas that are capable in various signal ranges … a lot of different equipment that can be utilized for pretty much the entire spectrum of the signal range … [combined with] some navigation testing and verification” assets, said Brian Solomon, general manager for international and strategic growth programs at L3Harris.