Westermo Lynx switches are being used in the Falcon tactical communications systems being supplied to the MOD by a BAE Systems led team. Westermo has already received equipment orders in excess of £500,000 for shipment in 2009 with the estimated total order requirement for ethernet switches valued at greater than £3m over the duration of the project.
The switch was chosen as a commercial off the shelf product (COTS), which could be used in the most hostile environments. The Lynx can operate in temperature ranges from -40 to +70°C and importantly is one of the smallest form factor switches on the market.
The Lynx series switches have a military design with a full metal housing (IP 40). They have a wide DC power range from 19 to 60 VDC, no moving parts or electrolytic capacitors, low power consumption with redundancy and support QoS (quality of service) with four priority queues and strict priority scheduling as well as HoL (head of line blocking prevention).
Falcon Increments A and C will deliver secure broadband-like voice, data and video communications for the British Army and Royal Air Force respectively. As such it is central to the network enabled capability required by UK Armed Forces in the 21st century. It is designed to operate with communication and information systems such as Bowman, Cormorant and Skynet V, and is compatible with other NATO systems.