Centre of Excellence CSW And Fraunhofer FKIE Expand Cooperation on Maritime Issues

The Centre of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters COE CSW in Kiel and the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE in Wachtberg have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their collaboration on marine issues. Both partners see the combination of the special operational expertise of the COE CSW and the strength of FKIE in technological innovation as an attractive opportunity. There is a broad range of possible topics on which the partners could collaborate, including sensor data fusion, underwater communication, situational awareness, human-machine interaction, cyber security and platform protection.

© COE CSW
The Centre of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters COE CSW in Kiel and the Fraunhofer FKIE in Wachtberg expand their cooperation on maritime issues and have agreed to this in a Memorandum of Understanding. Picture: Rear Admiral Henning Faltin, commander of the German Flotilla 1 and Director of the COE CSW (l.), and Dr. Markus Antweiler, Fraunhofer FKIE, at the signing in Kiel.
© COE CSW
The purpose of this agreement is to collaborate to develop and test forward-looking concepts in real-world environments.

The purpose of this agreement is to establish close collaboration between the two partners in research and innovation to leverage their complementary capabilities. The Centre of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters (COE CSW) is a NATO-accredited centre of excellence for maritime operations in coastal waters and adjacent sea-areas. In essence, the organization develops respective military concepts, doctrine and procedures and tests them in exercises.

Fraunhofer FKIE conducts pioneering research in the field of military information and communication technology. The institute's scientific departments are concerned with specific applications for the navy and other services. The spectrum of the institute’s activities ranges from carrying out non-technical studies to prototyping complex system solutions along the entire information processing chain.

COE CSW and FKIE strive to collaborate with other partners to develop and test forward-looking concepts in real-world environments. Specific examples include testing the performance of underwater acoustic communication networks and technologies for countering improvised explosive devices (counter-IED technologies) in the maritime environment.

Rear Admiral Henning Faltin, commander of the German Flotilla 1 and Director of the COE CSW, stressed the importance for the COE of a close exchange of application-oriented research and the opportunities such an exchange presents. In response, Dr. Markus Antweiler underscored the importance of direct contact with operational forces for the development of practical concepts and functional demonstrators from the perspective of Fraunhofer FKIE.

The memorandum of understanding has an initial term of two years with the option of extending the collaboration indefinitely. It is primarily designed to lay the groundwork for a trust-based exchange, while also enabling the option of project-based collaboration.