Thales

Thales is a world leader for mission critical information systems, with activities in 3 core businesses: aerospace (with all major aircraft manufacturers as customers), defence, and security (including ground transportation solutions). It employs 68000 people worldwide (50 countries). It provides its customers with all the key functions in the critical information loop, from detection and processing to transmission and distribution.

Thales develops its strategic capabilities in component, software and system engineering and architectures through its R&T organization. Designing and developing the mission-critical information systems that underpin the company’s leadership in aerospace, defence and security markets calls for comprehensive expertise in increasingly sophisticated technologies and the ability to integrate these technologies with large-scale software driven systems. Most Thales R&T programmes are shaped by the direct requirements of the company’s operating divisions and aim to give them the keys they need to set them apart from the competition and further improve their performance in increasingly aggressive markets.

Thales SA is involved in the FED4SAE project through its corporate research centre, the Thales Research & Technology centre from Palaiseau (France) near Paris, located since 2006 on the campus of the Ecole Polytechnique engineering school, close to CEA.

Thales Research & Technology employs 220 full-time staff, and some 40 doctoral students and 50 outside researchers are present on site. Research comes under following main headings. Hardware systems and components research includes microwave systems for land-based, naval and airborne radars and electronic warfare, optronics systems for detection and countermeasures, and security systems to protect people and property.

The “Critical and Embedded Systems” Laboratory of Thales Research & Technology, managed by Philippe Bonnot, works on advanced architectures and development tools for processing solutions in the different application domains of the THALES Group, including different levels of criticality (up to DAL-A for avionics and SIL4 for rail), and mixed criticality.