Airbus Defence and Space will be moving its Centre of Excellence in radiocommunications research and development (R&D) to Gatineau, Quebec. The company has its currently operations in France and will be transferring its capabilities to Canada.

Step by step, we will be moving our R&D department over from France, explained Chief Technology Officer Jeroen de Witte, who confirmed the move to Le Droit.

There are already approximately 150 workers employed at the Airbus Gatineau location. Roughly between 25 and 30 researchers and specialists will progressively join the team, wher multinational has operated for several years under the name of Cassidian Communications.

Gatineau is an attractive location for us because we already have facilities there and there are a great many parallel high-tech resources in the region, de Witte explained. In addition, the universities are turning out very high-quality graduates in our field.

The Gatineau centre of excellence will focus on Protocol P25, a key part of Airbus Defence and Space’s VESTA 9-1-1 solution. The encrypted protocol, which has four times the capacity of regular radio waves, allows for highly secure communications. The VESTA 9-1-1 system handles over 60 per cent of 9-1-1 emergency calls in the U.S., wher it helps keep more than 200 million people safe. It is also used in several cities in Canada and other countries around the world.

Airbus Defence and Space is a division of Airbus Group, formed by combining the business activities of Cassidian Communications, Astrium and Airbus Military.

For more information, visit www.airbusgroup.com.