Britain's Ministry of Defense has commissioned a one-year study on upgrading its current Identification Friend-or-Foe systems to the new NATO standard.

Raytheon UK and Thales UK, the IFF incumbents on more than 97 percent of the British military platforms involved in the Mode 5 upgrade, will conduct the study but the monetary value of the contract has not been disclosed.

IFF is an air traffic control system to identify and track military aircraft through the use of airborne transponders and ground interrogators. Mode 5 is the newest standard for the system, featuring enhanced signal modulation, expanded data capabilities for GPS positioning and updated data cryptography.

The Raytheon-Thales team are offering Thales' Bluegate products for Mode 5 interrogator applications and Raytheon UK's IFF4810 Mode 5 upgrade solution for most air and naval Mode 5 transponder uses.

"By bringing together best-in-class capability and extensive knowledge of UK platforms from both companies, we will deliver a low-risk and cost-effective solution to this important U.K. program," said Victor Chavez, chief executive officer of Thales U.K. "Our respective companies have already delivered Mode 5 IFF to a number of NATO forces and this program gives us the opportunity to extend this critical upgrade to UK platforms to maintain their interoperability in future NATO coalition forces."