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01 Nov 18. Britain to sell China ‘unlimited’ amount of military radar equipment, technology.
- Special export licence approved in April, just weeks after British Prime Minister Theresa May visited Beijing
- Move comes amid closer exchanges between top radar scientists from China, Britain
A British defence company has been given the green light to supply an unlimited quantity of goods to China’s military, including airborne radar technology likely to be used by the PLA Air Force. Although the supplier has not been named, the “open individual export licence” (OIEL) has been in place since April – two months after British Prime Minister Theresa May visited Beijing – according to information from Britain’s Department for International Trade.
Unlike previous deals involving British arms sales to China, which were capped by amount and value, under the new agreement the supplier can “export an unlimited quantity of goods”, including equipment, components, software and technology for military radar systems, the department said.
Its strategic export control database described the equipment covered by the licence as “target acquisition, weapon control and countermeasure systems” for “aircraft, helicopters and drones”.
“It’s potentially a big licence, and it does say the end user is the air force,” said Andrew Smith, a spokesman for the London-based NGO Campaign Against Arms Trade.
While open individual export licences usually remain valid for between five and 10 years, “the values are never published, so the figure could be very high”, Smith said.
But Britain is not the only European country that sells military equipment to China.
“Almost all the other big arms exporters do exactly the same,” Smith said.
The trade department declined to comment on the deal.
While Britain remains a close ally of the United States, the deal suggests London is prepared to deal with China despite the ongoing trade and strategic tussles between Beijing and Washington.
Li Bin, a senior fellow working jointly in the Nuclear Policy Programme and Asia Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said Britain was facing many challenges at home and abroad due to its pending departure from the European Union.
While many companies, including financial firms in London, are considering reallocating to mainland Europe, China last year doubled its direct investment in Britain to more than US$20bn. Against that backdrop, Britain seemed keen to do more business with China, Li said.
And while Washington might not like the radar deal, it might not be able to stop it, he said.
The export licence is not the only connection Britain has with China on radar systems. Last month, Professor Hugh Griffiths, one of Britain’s top radar scientists and chairman of the Defence Science Expert Committee at the Ministry of Defence, was officially recognised by Beijing for his contribution to the advancement of Chinese radar technology.
Wu Jianqi, chief designer of China’s first anti-stealth aircraft radar system, presented Griffiths with an “Outstanding Award for Chinese Radar International Development” in front of more than 700 Chinese scientists at a conference in Nanjing, capital of east China’s Jiangsu province, according to information on official websites.
Griffiths, who has been a regular visitor to China since the 1980s, did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, David Stupples, a British professor of electronic and radio systems at City, University of London, whose research focuses on electronic intelligence and warfare, said he had been invited to lecture at the technical institute associated with intelligence services in China.
“China has made tremendous progress in radar design over the past 10 years and must be considered in the [world’s] top 10,” he said.
In space-based radar systems, for instance, China has shown “expertise and ingenuity”, but for maritime and airborne applications, “the UK is marginally ahead”, Stupples said.
Britain was also ahead on designing complete intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, although the Chinese military’s “individual components are first rate”, he said.
Cao Yunhe, an award-winning military radar scientist at Xidian University in Xian, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi province, said the export licence was good news for China’s military strength and radar research.
“If they are willing to sell we are willing to buy,” he said. “We want to know how their systems operate. It will help us improve our own design,” he said.
However, it was unlikely the technology and equipment being sold by Britain would be its most advanced.
“There will always be some restrictions. If not on quantity, then on quality,” he said.
Wang Tong, who is also from Xidian University and works on radar systems for China’s military aircraft and satellites, said the exchanges between Chinese and British experts would not go “too deep”.
Britain shares a lot of intelligence with the US, so China could not possibly allow British experts to get directly involved in its military radar programmes, he said,
“Sharing information about models and specifications is strictly prohibited. I believe both sides are fully aware of the consequences,” Wang said.
“Most of the time people are just talking about physics, mathematical models and new theories.” (Source: News Now/www.scmp.com)
01 Nov 18. The U.S. Army awarded Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) a $191m contract for Ku-band radio frequency radars. KuRFS, an advanced electronically scanned array system, fills an immediate U.S. Army operational need for a counter-unmanned aerial vehicle radar. Already deployed, KuRFS delivers precision fire control as well as “sense and warn” capability for multiple missions including detection of rocket, artillery, mortar and swarming UAS threats.
“Seeing threats – like swarming drones – as soon as possible on the battlefield is essential to protecting critical assets and saving soldiers’ lives,” said Andrew Hajek, senior director of tactical radars at Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. “KuRFS makes this possible by delivering a unique combination 360-degree situational awareness, precision and mobility.”
KuRFS enables defense against multiple threat types through integration with the Land-Based Phalanx Weapon System, 50-caliber guns and 30 mm cannons. The radar also supports high-energy laser and the Coyote weapon system in both a ground mounted or vehicle mounted configuration. Raytheon’ KuRFS is able to quickly address the urgent needs of the Army through a model of rapid-turn development and deployment. This reduces time to fielding, while providing enhanced flexibility to adapt to a quickly-changing threat environment in the drone space.
30 Oct 18. German Air Force to test covert radar in large-scale demo over Bavaria. The German Air Force and electronics specialist Hensoldt are gearing up to deploy a new sensing technology in southern Germany that promises to target enemy aircraft without pilots knowing they are being tracked. The company first unveiled its TwInvis passive radar system at the Berlin Air Show in April, where it was rumored as a technology with the potential to detect stealthy aircraft like the F-35.
The upcoming test in early November is part of what the German Air Force considers a “measuring campaign” to evaluate the technology, a service spokesman said. The Air Force expects to participate in the event with aircraft and personnel.
Passive radar systems rely on commercial airwaves to watch a given airspace. In a nutshell, the sensors can compute the positions of aerial objects based only on their reflections in the buzz of broadcast signals over populated areas.
The lack of a dedicated emitter against which reflections are tracked in traditional radar setups means the system cannot be detected by anti-radar weapons. At the same time, a key drawback for passive radars is that they must have sufficiently strong commercial broadcast activity in the targeted area to work at all.
Hensoldt officials told Defense News that interest from international customers in TwInvis has skyrocketed since engineers set up a large screen for Berlin airshow visitors to show tracks of nearby aircraft performing aerial maneuvers. (The U.S. Air Force did not let its two F-35 specimens at the show do flight demonstrations, leaving observers robbed of a chance to see what would actually happen in a match-up of fifth-generation stealth against passive sensing.)
Bundeswehr officials have been working with Hensoldt on passive radar technology for several years as part of an initiative to probe an eventual acquisition by the Luftwaffe. According to the service spokesman, the technology could serve as a “gap filler” to augment the capabilities of air-surveillance systems, especially in covering low altitudes.
For the week-long test — company officials declined to give a precise date — Hensoldt will set up three passive radar receivers in the Munich area and one roughly 70 miles west, near the city of Ulm. The four sensors will allow air traffic tracking in a radius reaching north to Frankfurt in central Germany, but also include parts of Austria and Italy in the south and west, and parts of the Czech Republic in the northeast, according to the company.
“The sensors will see both the small Cessna at 500 feet, as well as the commercial airliner at 45,000 feet, or any Eurofighter in between,” Hensoldt passive radar chief Frank Bernhardt said in an interview.
Hensoldt believes its engineers have pushed the technology to be accurate enough to guide anti-air missiles near their targets. Another key application is border surveillance in cases where a government operating the technology wants to appear inactive.
“If I can operate a sensor there and know what happens on the other side without my measurements being detectable, then that’s exactly the type of advantage that passive radar can bring,” said Bernhardt.
Company officials also have been speaking with Bundeswehr officials about the possibility of integrating a passive radar air picture into aircraft, or using it for maritime surveillance for the German navy, especially in the Baltic Sea, Bernhardt said.
South American governments facing wealthy narcotics cartels with radar defenses aboard their drug-running aircraft also have approached the company about the technology, Bernhardt added. “That is a use case that we didn’t see two years ago.” (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Defense News)
30 Oct 18. US Army’s missile defense radar ‘sense-off’ attempts to hit reset button. The U.S. Army formally announced its plan to conduct a missile defense radar “sense-off” to replace the aging Patriot that will be included in its Integrated Air and Missile Defense system (IAMD) under development. The purpose of this sense-off seems to be designed to hit the reset button on the Lower Tier Air and-Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) program that has struggled to bring about a new radar for well over a decade. But will this effort right the ship for the program, or send it further off course? The Raytheon-made Patriot air and missile defense radar was first fielded in the 1980s, and the Army attempted to replace the system with Lockheed Martin’s Medium Extended Air Defense System, or MEADS, through an international co-development effort with Germany and Italy. But that program was canceled in the U.S. after closing out a proof-of-concept phase roughly six years ago.
Since then, the Army has studied and debated how to replace the Patriot radar with one that has 360-degree detection capability, while Raytheon continues to upgrade its radar to keep pace with current threats. It is acknowledged that there will come a point where that radar will not be able to go up against future threats.
Taking years to decide, the service finally moved forward on a competition to replace the radar last year and chose four companies to come up with design concepts for the capability — Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Technovative Applications.
Earlier this month, Raytheon and Lockheed were chosen to continue technology development under that program.
Tabula Rasa
Army acquisition chief Bruce Jette told Defense News just prior to the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference that the service wanted to hold a sense-off to identify available radar capabilities.
According to an Oct. 29 notice posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website, the sense-off will take place between May and June next year at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Each vendor with a radar will have roughly two weeks on the range to demonstrate capabilities.
The sense-off is a separate effort to the technology development program in which Lockheed and Raytheon have been chosen to participate, and any vendor in the industry can come with a capability ready to be demonstrated, opening competition back up to the entire radar industry.
The Army is holding an industry day event Nov. 14-15 for interested parties.
And it seems, according to the Army’s new lead for AMD modernization, Brig. Gen. Randall McIntire, that the sense-off is a way of identifying means to redefine requirements to more rapidly pursue a radar replacement.
McIntire’s outfit is part of the Army Futures Command — activated in August and based in Austin, Texas — that is designed to aggressively modernize the force.
“There are a lot of different approaches to it,” McIntire told Defense News in a Oct. 30 interview. “It gets back to, I think, we were being too over-specific. [The Army] was really tying its hands, so we would like to see if there is a better way of doing it and it would be like best of breed, it would be like the best athlete. We are trying to get the best thing that we can get.
“We are pretty excited to see what we get from having a clean slate, and we are very hopeful that we are going to find something that is going to have increased battlespace.”
As the result of the sense-off, the Army plans to choose one vendor to build six prototypes by the end of fiscal 2022 to prove the whether the radar can be manufactured, according to the solicitation. A follow-on contract for additional radars is expected.
But McIntire said if there is more than one option that proves extremely promising during the sense-off, it’s possible a second vendor could be chosen to build prototypes.
“We’re trying to get the best that we can and buy smaller quantities, and then buy more of the next best thing,” McIntire said. “It’s really not about these long-term development programs that take 10-15 years to work their way through the cycle.”
The Army also has an eye on a next-generation sensor that would be fielded around 2037, but the service can’t wait that long for a new capability, according to McIntire.
What comes out of the sense-off he said will help the Army redefine what it wants in a radar. This means not much is laid out in terms of requirements in the solicitation — at least not publicly.
One thing the Army is asking for is the ability for the radar to continue to take one new capability through software upgrades over time to address advancing threats.
Within the solicitation, the Army did define power requirements and is asking that the radar is able to tie into the rest of its already chosen elements of IAMD such as the Integrated air and Missile Defense Battle Command System, which is not yet fielded. But not much else is defined.
What about that 360-degree requirement?
Something not explicitly spelled out in the solicitation is the Army’s top requirement for a new radar — to have 360-degree detection capability — something that drove the need for a new radar in the first place.
While vendors who participate in the sense-off will receive a classified list of requirements, it’s unclear whether the 360-degree capability will be on that list.
McIntire told Defense News in an interview earlier this month that a 360-degree capability might not be the key attribute of the radar the Army is looking to field by 2023. But he added that it was something the Army cares about because of the threat environment.
Following the release of the solicitation, he added, there may be a variety of ways to ensure the system always sees the threat. If it turns out 360-degree detection is the best way, then the Army would shape requirements to reflect that.
With what appears to be a walking-back on the Army’s top requirement for a new radar, those who have long tracked the program have been left somewhat bewildered by the pivot.
“The secretary’s and chief of staff’s leadership in recognizing the need for multidomain operations in a complex and contested air environment stands at sharp contrast to rumors that leadership could remove the 360-degree requirement for LTAMDS,” Tom Karako, a missile defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Defense News on Oct. 31.
“The last Army Air and Missile Defense Strategy from 2012 has about 25 references to the importance of 360-degree coverage — one for every year the Army has been working on a 360 radar since the 1993 requirement for the Corps [Surface-to-Air Missile] SAM,” he said. “But the need is far greater than it was then.”
Without omnidirectional surveillance, tracking, fire control and fires, “the enemy will just kill you in your blind spots,” Karako added. “LTAMDS has been designed as a 360-degree asset. Taking it away belies its nature, it’s very reason to exist.”
While McIntire wouldn’t say whether the 360-degree capability had been officially eliminated from the requirements, he did say that the Army could still fight in an integrated way by “using a lot of different sensors” that can see the entire battlespace.
“I would just say there’s more than one way to do that. You could do it through the network or through defense design and understanding the threat,” he said. “I just think we are really trying to just step back and not over prescribe and see what we are going to get.” (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Defense News)
31 Oct 18. Saab launches hypersonic mode for naval radars. Saab has launched a new hypersonic detection mode for its Sea Giraffe naval radars. The mode is optimised for the Sea Giraffe 4A Fixed Face, which is the fixed array configuration of the family of S-band AESA radar systems. Due to the radar horizon, naval vessels have limited time to act against low flying missiles travelling at greater speeds. With the emergence of threats in the high supersonic and even hypersonic speed ranges, this threat is worsening. To counter this emerging challenge, Saab is offering a hypersonic detection mode that is capable of detecting and tracking targets travelling at hypersonic speeds. It will give the ship more time to act against any target due to quick track formation time. The capability builds on Saab’s next generation track while scan technology, which enables track start within a fraction of a second for any number of targets, including stealthy ones.
Anders Carp, head of Saab’s business area surveillance, said: ‘The hypersonic threat is credible and increasing. navies around the world are asking for a capability to retain their dominant battlespace awareness and to give them crucial time to act. We are able to meet these requirements by using our existing technology, adapting it for the hypersonic challenge.’ (Source: Shephard)
31 Oct 18. USAF’s 655th group becomes AFRC’s first ISR wing. The 655th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group (ISRG) has been activated as the US Air Force Reserve Command’s (AFRC) first ISR wing during a ceremony at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (AFB). Headquartered at Robins AFB in Georgia, the AFRC continues to expand its ISR capacity owing to the rising national security needs for ISR capabilities following the 9/11 attacks on 11 September 2001. To date, the command has created a number of units to provide a complete range of ISR capabilities to the US Air Force (USAF) and the Department of Defense.
The AFRC created an ISR group comprising intelligence squadrons to carry out the duties of a wing until September 2013, when a ‘high-structure wing’ was created and activated. With 38 personnel, the group started off as a detachment working inside facilities provided by the 445th Airlift Wing and was later activated with the addition of five subordinate squadrons.
AFRC Headquarters ISR director and 655th ISRG first commander colonel Douglas A Drakeley said: “Knowledge is power, and American warfighters deserve to know what is transpiring on the battlefield. “We need to build that knowledge and situational awareness for our combatant commanders in the joint force. We fight as a joint team, so our capabilities become part of that joint team. We provide them with the information to be effective.”
According to Drakeley, the new wing will help significantly increase the 655th ISRG’s ability to provide the ISR surge capacity the active duty requires when operations tempos reach beyond their current capabilities.
Drakeley said: “When we started, we were struggling because it was a new capability that the reserve hadn’t experienced yet.
“But we continued to advocate for it [wing status] because it’s important; it’s the way the active duty is structured. It would have been challenging to integrate with our current active-duty partners if we didn’t have a similar structure and capability.”
The 655th ISR Wing includes two groups, the 655th ISRG and the 755th ISRG at the Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia, in addition to 14 other squadrons from seven operating locations engaged in ten distinct mission sets. (Source: airforce-technology.com)
29 Oct 18. Weibel looking for new muzzle velocity radar market. Danish company Weibel, which manufactures muzzle velocity radars, is looking for new markets as it installs its first MVRS-700 ‘small’ product onto the new mounted Elbit 120mm Cardom 10 mortar. This weapon is about to enter service with the Royal Danish Army on its General Dynamics European Land Systems – Mowag (GDELS-Mowag) Piranha 5 8×8 armour personal carriers. Finn Kobbero, regional sales director for Weibel Scientific, speaking at the IQPC Future Mortars Conference in London on 24 October, explained that, although the company’s products have been installed on at least 20 different artillery systems, the Danish army’s Cardom 10 application is the first time they have been employed as standard on a mortar barrel. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
29 Oct 18. Drones Pose Increasing Risks to Aircraft, Embry-Riddle Study Confirms. In a newly published study. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University researchers revealed results from a UAS detection study performed near Daytona Beach International Airport. To gather their data, the research team secured a DJI AeroScope – a passive radio-frequency sensor designed to detect, track, and record UAS activity. During the 13-day sampling period, researchers detected 73 different DJI-manufactured drones that made 192 separate flights. Researchers also collected valuable operator behavior data, including common UAS flight locations, times, and altitudes. Surprisingly, only 12 percent of all detected drones were flying near unimproved land and parks. More than three-fourths were flying in residential neighborhoods or near single-family homes. Another 21.5 percent hovered above commercial, industrial or public properties, the researchers reported.
“This was an unexpected finding,” said Assistant Professor of Aeronautical Science Dr. Ryan Wallace, lead author of the study. “We thought most drone operators would choose relatively open areas offering a safety buffer from hazards, but that wasn’t the case.”
The researchers compared detected sUAS activity with locations and altitudes prescribed by the FAA’s UAS Facility Maps. According to the FAA, “UAS Facility Maps shows the maximum altitudes around airports where the FAA may authorize Part 107 operations without additional safety analysis.” More than one-fifth of the 177 flights were flying higher than the safe altitude prescribed for their operating area. Moreover, researchers compared detected UAS operations to historical manned aircraft flight data, revealing several near encounters.
“These data suggest that more than one in five sUAS flights presented an unmitigated risk to nearby manned aviation operations,” the authors concluded.
They suggested that drone manufacturers should more frequently incorporate a technology called “geofencing,” which would prevent sUAS from accidentally entering restricted areas. The authors also proposed that the FAA could consider making more information on sUAS activity available to aircraft pilots.
The study, “Evaluating Small UAS Near Midair Collision Risk Using AeroScope and ADS-B,” published by the International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics and Aerospace (Vol. 5, Issue 4). Co-authors were faculty members Kristy W. Kiernan, Tom Haritos, John Robbins and Godfrey V. D’souza. (Source: UAS VISION)
29 Oct 18. DroneShield Ltd (ASX:DRO) (“DroneShield” or the “Company”) announces the launch of the additional product DroneNodeTM, in response to end-user requirements. DroneNodeTM is an evolution of the Company’s existing DroneCannonTM product, a portable, compact and inconspicuous counterdrone jamming device which can be utilised at large outdoor events by law enforcement without raising public concern. This product is particularly relevant given the recent drone attack on the Venezuelan president, and the high profile mailbomb terrorist attacks in the United States, heightening the awareness of law enforcement globally to potential threats to high profile political targets. DroneNodeTM and DroneCannonTM have not been authorized as required by the federal communications commission (“FCC”). These devices are not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, in the United States, other than to the United States government and its agencies, until such authorization is obtained. The use of such devices in the United States by other persons or entities, including state or local government agencies, is prohibited by federal law. Laws limiting the availability of such devices o certain types of users may apply in other jurisdictions, and any sales will be conducted only in compliance with the applicable laws. Jammer affects only frequencies at 2.4Ghz, 5.8Ghz and GPS/Glonass (optionally). Emergency broadcasts, cellphone communication and other dedicated channels will not be affected.
28 Oct 18. DoD advances effort to replace airborne command platforms with single aircraft type. The US Department of Defense (DoD) has updated its requirements for “a more effective and efficient” aircraft to accomplish the missions currently performed by the Boeing E-4B, E-6B, and C-32A airborne command platforms. Following an initial request for information (RFI) released in July, a second RFI released on 26 October calls for more detailed information that could aid the US Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) in its effort to acquire a single new aircraft type to undertake the National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC), Executive Airlift (EA), Airborne Command Post (ABNCP), and Take Charge and Move Out (TACAMO) missions assigned to these platforms. The new aircraft would be identified as NEAT, which takes the first letter of each of these acronyms.
“The DoD is conducting an analysis of alternatives that will examine potential synergies in acquiring common platforms that do not sacrifice operational effectiveness or increase the overall cost to the department … The DoD is conducting market research as part of its planning for development efforts to identify potential aircraft manufacturing sources that may possess the expertise, capabilities, and experience to produce a solution at the best mix of cost, schedule, and performance for these missions,” the amended RFI said.
The new RFI does not set out performance specifications required of the airframe, but asks for industry to supply facts and figures for their proposed solution under a number of different operating regimes as well as the scope for airframe modifications for the specialist military missions (including aerial refuelling and chemical, biological, radiation, and nuclear [CBRN] protection), and whether or not conversion would be needed for one mission to another. No procurement timeline is proposed, although the solicitation does state that the selected airframe should expect to be in service for 25 to 30 years. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
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Blighter® Surveillance Systems (BSS) is a UK-based electronic-scanning radar and sensor solution provider delivering an integrated multi-sensor package to systems integrators comprising the Blighter electronic-scanning radars, cameras, thermal imagers, trackers and software solutions. Blighter radars combine patented solid-state Passive Electronic Scanning Array (PESA) technology with advanced Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) and Doppler processing to provide a robust and persistent surveillance capability. Blighter Surveillance Systems is a Plextek Group company, a leading British design house and technology innovator, and is based at Great Chesterford on the outskirts of Cambridge, England.
The Blighter electronic-scanning (e-scan) FMCW Doppler ground surveillance radar (GSR) is a unique patented product that provides robust intruder detection capabilities under the most difficult terrain and weather conditions. With no mechanical moving parts and 100% solid-state design, the Blighter radar family of products are extremely reliable and robust and require no routine maintenance for five years. The Blighter radar can operate over land and water rapidly searching for intruders as small a crawling person, kayaks and even low-flying objects. In its long-range modes the Blighter radar can rapidly scan an area in excess of 3,000 km² to ensure that intruders are detected, identified and intercepted before they reach critical areas.
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