RADAR, EO/IR, NIGHT VISION AND SURVEILLANCE UPDATE

Sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems

www.blighter.com

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19 Dec 18. Lockheed Martin’s Pilotage Distributed Aperture Sensor system set for V-280 flight testing. Lockheed Martin is moving forward with Pilotage Distributed Aperture Sensor (PDAS) system development, and next year it plans to flight test the system on Bell’s V-280 Valor tiltrotor aircraft and integrate additional capabilities into the situational awareness technology.

PDAS consists of six integrated infrared (IR) imaging sensors, an open-architecture processor (OAP), and one or more helmet-mounted displays to provide pilots with enhanced situational awareness and threat warning capabilities. In 2018, the company conducted PDAS installation checkouts and integration tests on the V-280. Looking into next year, the company said it anticipates system flight tests at a Bell facility to “capture” 360° imagery from the suite of integrated sensors. (Source: IHS Jane’s)

 

20 Dec 18. European partnership for AMI Group Defence Division.

AMI Group Defence Division (AGDD) has announced the launch of a new product line, following the acquisition of the supply and services capabilities for Sitep Italia. The partnership of these two companies will entail full service and sales support in Australia, New Zealand and approved areas in south-east Asia for the main Sitep product lines, with core markets in information integration, communication and security.

Valdo Lombardi, business development manager at Sitep Italia, said, “Sitep are looking forward to working side by side with the AMI Group for now and into the future.”

AGDD sees an increasing requirement for security type devices to detect, monitor and deter security risks without a fatal outcome. The MASS range of products are ideal for this role, with an agile directional, stabilised, tracked, laser and sonic capability, with an application in key operational areas, including:

• Border security;
• Search and rescue operations;
• Anti-piracy;
• Law enforcement;
• Critical infrastructure security; and
• Port protection.

MASS is currently installed on board the Italian Navy Horizon Class ships, allows long distance (up to 3,000 metres) of extremely loud audio messages with a very narrow beam.

The device has been designed for various purposes from ship self-defence and anti-piracy to rescue and survival operations. The device is equipped with a zoom camera (daylight and/or IR), that allows the operator to follow and record the target actions and with an extremely powerful search light usable to illuminate the target or disturbing it when used in stroboscopic mode.

As further deterrent the unit is equipped with a laser dazzler the function of which is to temporarily blind people on board a non authorised boat approaching the ship too closely.

The system can be fully integrated with the Combat Management System and with existing Security Control Stations. For vessels with more room and a higher requirement, or where more acoustic power is required, MASS CS-424 takes over where the LW MASS CS-424 leaves off.

AMI Group has a multifaceted portfolio of companies including marine sales and equipment service, safety products, electronics manufacture, satellite communications and airtime, navigation charts, and water treatment and purification, for leisure, commercial, defence and offshore marine interests. Sitep Italia boasts a long tradition of design, development, manufacturing and support of advanced electronic systems for military and commercial applications since 1975.  (Source: Defence Connect)

19 Dec 18. Hensoldt delivers second antenna for Eurofighter Captor E radar. Germany-based Hensoldt has announced the delivery of the second antenna for Captor E radar to Leonardo UK in Edinburgh. The antenna has completed an acceptance test. It is part of the development of the new Captor E radar system, also known as electronically scanning (e-Scan) radar, for the Eurofighter Typhoon. According to the company, production of the E-scan antenna can begin at the Hensoldt site in Ulm, Germany.

A next-generation mechanical multi-mode pulse Doppler radar, the Captor E radar is equipped with a very large sized antenna and repositioner.

Based on active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology, the new radar will enhance the capability of the aircraft by providing a 60% wider field of regard, increase areas of deployment, and improve pilot protection.

It is being developed by the Euroradar consortium. Leonardo’s Airborne and Space Systems Division is the lead contractor and includes Hensoldt as the sensor solutions provider for the radar and Indra.

The Euroradar consortium has already developed and produced over 400 Captor radars.

This year, two flight campaigns of the radar were carried out at British Aerospace Systems (BAES) in Warton, UK, and Airbus Defence and Space in Manching, Germany.

During trials, the new radar successfully met the objectives of the critical design review (CDR).

The first radar systems are on track for delivery as of mid-2019. According to Leonardo, Kuwait will be the first Typhoon operator to receive the new radar.

Typhoon is a twin-engine, canard-delta wing, multirole fighter manufactured by a consortium of EADS, Alenia Aeronautica and BAE for deployment during air operations, including air policing, peace support and high-intensity conflict missions. (Source: airforce-technology.com)

19 Dec 18. The Commandant of the US Marine Corps observes SkyWall100 UAS net capture at NATO NNTEX-18C, Quantico. SkyWall100 demonstrated physical capture capability, with low collateral damage, in several “drone threat” scenarios at the Marine Corps Base Quantico for the Non-Lethal Technology Exercise NNTEX-18C. SkyWall100 successfully engaged several moving and static drone targets, demonstrating SkyWall’s ability to physically capture and neutralise a drone threat. The system defeated multiple drones including the large DJI S1000 octocopter, that was captured in a simulated live mission when it was armed with an inert payload. The demonstrations were set to show existing deployed systems such as SkyWall, alongside emerging non-lethal capabilities in countering Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aerial System (LSS sUAS) threats. Technologies demonstrated included Detection, Identification, Jamming and Physical defeat. The threat briefs and scenarios demonstrated the growing need for a physical interdiction. When jamming systems were able to disrupt the drone, it would hover allowing SkyWall100 to easily capture the device, ensuring the perpetrator is denied the ability to re-engage the defensive force. This showed SkyWall100s ability to be used alongside other technologies to offer a layered defence. A large number of military officers, analysts and observers from NATO nations around the world attended, gaining an appreciation of the complexities associated with drone threats and the challenges faced by the military when operating in a range of environments.

19 Dec 18. Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) was awarded a $585m contract by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to design, develop and deliver its Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii (HDR-H) in Oahu, Hawaii. The HDR-H radar will provide autonomous acquisition and persistent precision tracking and discrimination to optimize the defensive capability of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) and counter evolving threats.

“Lockheed Martin will leverage the development of our Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) to provide the lowest risk and best value HDR-H solution to MDA, which includes open, scalable architecture for future growth,” said Chandra Marshall, program director for Lockheed Martin’s Missile Defense Radars market segment.

LRDR is currently under construction in Clear, Alaska, and is scheduled for an on-time delivery in 2020. The system’s open architecture design will enable future growth to keep pace with emerging threats.

“LRDR completed a key milestone in August, successfully searching for, acquiring and tracking numerous satellites, known as a closed loop track, confirming our design is complete, mature and ready for full rate production in 2019,” said Marshall.

The work for HDR-H will be performed in Moorestown, New Jersey, and Oahu, Hawaii.

As a proven world leader in systems integration and development of air and missile defense systems and technologies, Lockheed Martin delivers high-quality missile defense solutions that protect citizens, critical assets and deployed forces from current and future threats. The company’s experience spans missile design and production, hit-to-kill capabilities, infrared seekers, command and control/battle management, and communications, precision pointing and tracking optics, radar and signal processing, as well as threat-representative targets for missile defense tests.

18 Dec 18. NATO completes E-3A GATM upgrades. The last of 14 Boeing E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to be upgraded for operations in commercial airspace has been delivered back to NATO, the company announced on 18 December. With the first aircraft having been fitted with Global Air Traffic Management (GATM) technology by Boeing in the US and delivered back to NATO in 2016, the remaining 13 were upgraded by Airbus as the NATO AWACS support authority at the company’s Manching facility in southern Germany.

The programme was focused on a new flight management system and the installation of 50 new ‘black boxes’, as well as the integration of flight safety avionic systems. In addition to making the aircraft GATM-compliant, the programme also reduced the flight crew from three to two.

Based on a modified Boeing 707/320 commercial airframe, the E-3 is built around a 9.1 m-diameter rotating radome that sits atop the fuselage. This radar has a range of more than 400km (which equates to a coverage area of more than 500,000km 2 of airspace) to look down and detect, identify, and track low-flying aircraft over land or water. The E-3A’s typical crew of 14 is made up of surveillance operators (SOs), weapons controllers (WCs), fighter allocators (FAs), technical director (TD) (mission chief), surveillance controllers (SCs), and passive systems controllers (PSCs); technical support (TS) crew to support the onboard systems (including the AN/APY-2 radar); and a flight crew made up of the aircraft commander, first officer, flight engineer, and navigator.

The NATO E-3A Component originally fielded 18 E-3A AWACS aircraft when it formed in 1982. An accident in 1995 and the retirement of three airframes due to budgetary cutbacks over the years have reduced the number to 14, which are slated to remain in service through to 2035. (Source: IHS Jane’s)

18 Dec 18. Elbit Systems’ SeagullTM multi-mission Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) recently completed a series of rigorous sea tests operating the Kraken Robotic Systems Inc.’s KATFISH Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) towed system. These tests are an addition to a successful series of Mine Counter Measures (MCM) tests and exercises conducted by the Seagull over the past two years, including trials and exercises in participation with Western and other Navies. Actively controlled, KATFISH is an intelligent towfish platform that was specifically designed for high-speed hunting of naval mines and underwater improvised explosive devices. The system produces ultra-high definition seabed imagery and mapping for a variety of military and commercial applications and is capable of transmitting the sonar data in real time. Integrated onboard the Seagull, it provides a high performance sensor contributing to an end-to-end, unmanned, mine hunting capability.

KATFISH is deployed and recovered by the same Launching and Recovering System (LARS) that the Seagull operates for its Side Scan Sonar (SSS), which can be installed upon customer demand. KATFISH is an addition to a long list of sensors and effectors that have already been successfully integrated in the Seagull further enhancing its modularity.

Seagull offers endurance of 4 days and mission sea-keeping of up to Sea-State 5 and is capable of executing SAS search missions, stand-alone or as part of an MCM toolbox. Seagull is operational with the Israeli Navy and is fully compliant with the COLREGs International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.

18 Dec 18. Saab launches laser rangefinder for Arafura OPVs. Saab has introduced a new rangefinder named Vidar, combining compact size and performance for integration with the Royal Australian Navy’s Arafura Class Offshore Patrol Vessels. Vidar is currently in production for the situational awareness system that Saab will deliver for Australia’s new Arafura Class OPVs as part of the $3.5bn SEA 1180 program.  SEA 1180 Phase 1 OPVs will replace and improve upon the capability delivered by the 13 Armidale Class Patrol Boats by acquiring 12 new vessels, which will be known as the Arafura Class when they enter service from 2022. Prime contractor for the SEA 1180 program Lürssen Australia awarded Saab the contract for the situational awareness system in April 2018, as Saab previously announced. (Source: Defence Connect)

18 Dec 18. DroneShield has today released an ASX announcement with regards to its teaming agreement with Kuwait’s Zain Group. The announcement is as follows: DroneShield Ltd (the “Company” or “DroneShield”) is pleased to announce that, following the execution of a Teaming Agreement with Kuwait’s Zain Group (“Zain”), a US$7bn leader in telecommunications in the Middle East, announced to the market on 5 December 2018, Zain has now placed an order for DroneShield’s equipment. While the value of the order is not material to DroneShield’s overall revenues, it represents an important step in the evolution of DroneShield’s relationship with Zain.

DroneShield’s Chief Executive Officer Oleg Vornik, said “Our key Middle Eastern partner Zain, which operates across a number of Middle Eastern countries and has a workforce of over 6,000 and over 47 million active individual, business and governmental customers in the region, has financially committed to the partnership by ordering our equipment. Just weeks ago, Zain announced the establishment of its Zain Drone business that will serve governments and enterprises in Kuwait, with plans to extend the business gradually across Zain’s regional footprint. Zain selected DroneShield as its counterdrone partner because, in the words of Zain Group’s CEO Bader Al Kharafi, as set out in Zain Group’s release about its partnership with DroneShield, “DroneShield’s product range, coupled with our telecommunications expertise, provides exactly what our [Zain’s] customers are looking for. Consequently, after an extensive review of the counterdrone market, we [Zain] opted to enter into a Teaming Agreement with DroneShield.”

DroneShield looks forward to building on its recent successes in the Middle East and elsewhere, together with Zain.”

17 Dec 18. HENSOLDT forges ahead with the Development of Eurofighter Radar. New radar increases areas of deployment and improves pilot protection. The Eurofighter will be equipped with a new generation of radar which will enhance the aircraft’s capabilities and survivability. In the Euroradar consortium, the sensor solutions provider HENSOLDT is pressing ahead with the development of the Eurofighter’s new Captor-E radar system. Following the successful acceptance test, HENSOLDT has now delivered the second antenna ready for series production to Leonardo UK in Edinburgh. This means that the production of the so-called e-scan antenna can commence at the HENSOLDT site in Ulm/Germany according to plan. This paves the way for the delivery of the first radar systems as of mid-2019.

As early as spring 2018, the radar has successfully completed two flight campaigns at British Aerospace Systems (BAES) in Warton and at Airbus Defence and Space in Manching and met the requirements of the Critical Design Review (CDR) exactly on schedule.

The Captor-E radar is based on AESA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) technology and will significantly enhance the performance of the Eurofighter. Electronic beam scanning combined with flexible radar resource management provide outstanding detection performance and ensure simultaneous multi-target tracking, missile guidance and perception of the situation. The Eurofighter’s nose is larger than that of all the comparable fighters, which means that the antenna is much larger and consequently more powerful than that of competing aircraft. This, together with the ability to mechanically rotate the antenna with a larger angle of view, increases both the detection area and the field of regard in comparison with the AESA radar systems used by the competitors.

The further development of radar technology is one of the main focal points of the sensor specialist HENSOLDT. For this reason, HENSOLDT operates one of the largest cleanroom production lines for radio-frequency components in Europe. HENSOLDT’s radar systems are deployed worldwide by armed forces, including the US and German Navy, as well as at the bases of the Canadian, Australian and German Air Force. The Eurofighter radar is being developed by the Euroradar consortium comprising Leonardo (Great Britain, Italy), Indra (Spain) and HENSOLDT (Germany). The consortium has already developed and produced more than 400 Captor radars.

17 Dec 18. Northrop Grumman Disrupts Aerial Surveillance Market with Firebird OPA. One of the most exciting developments in aerial surveillance isn’t happening at some shadowy Air Force Base in the middle of Nevada desert, it’s occurring at Mojave Air and Space Port, a bustling bastion of aerospace creativity, located 50 miles to the southeast of Bakersfield, California. There, Northrop Grumman is working hard to make Medium Altitude, Long Endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft capabilities accessible to a far larger global customer base than what exists today.

They believe this lofty goal can be achieved by bringing an optionally manned, highly unique looking aircraft to the marketplace. That aircraft is the Northrop Grumman Firebird, a plane whose obscure development we here at The War Zone followed intensely, albeit from a distance, as nobody in an official capacity has been willing to discuss it—that is until now.

The concept is as bewilderingly logical as it is downright exciting—create an aircraft that can fly very efficiently at medium altitudes for very long periods of time while also possessing the ability to swoop down below bad weather if need be. Ideally, this aircraft would also carry a wide variety of sensor and communications payloads, many of which can be outfitted concurrently during a single mission. These payloads would also have to be rapidly reconfigurable in the field, allowing for a single aircraft to accomplish disparate mission types simultaneously. But above all else, this transformer of a flying machine would need to be able to go from manned to unmanned operations in just a handful of hours.

All this is precisely what Firebird was built to do.

The Firebird concept actually dates the back to the latter half of the 2000s, with Scaled Composites, Northrop Grumman’s storied subsidiary, eventually building a technology demonstrator. That highly experimental aircraft was a forerunner to the current Northrop Grumman designed Firebird, which is a clean-sheet, production-ready aircraft. Scaled Composites’ Firebird demonstrator first flew in 2010 and proved that an optionally manned, highly flexible surveillance aircraft could not only work, but it could compete for missions with both unmanned and manned platforms at the same time and win on both fronts.

The current Firebird’s greatest trick is its ability to transform in the field. It can go from manned to unmanned mode in just four hours. The process of converting the aircraft is remarkably straightforward. A Northrop Grumman official described the process to us in detail, stating:

“It’s a Garmin glass cockpit, with a standard three screen display. One of the really interesting things about the way that we designed the cockpit is that the ground station is highly similar. It’s very easy for the pilot to transition from flying in the aircraft to flying it from the ground. It’s also easy to transition from manned to unmanned mode. That is a four hour flop, with very simple mechanical and electronic interfaces. There is only a handful of them and they are very straightforward.

The flight test program continues to demonstrate the full capability of the system. We have flown both manned and unmanned now, and are continuing to mature the system, switching between manned and unmanned operations almost daily. We actually flew UAV, did a software update the following day and flew manned with the new software load. Even in the test phase, we’re really reaping the benefits of that flexibility.

When we go into the unmanned mode what happens is the canopy comes off, the seats come out, the instrument panel comes out. A B-LOS (Beyond Line Of Sight) dish goes in and a bigger canopy to cover the dish goes in. Again, it’s a very simple interface.”

Firebird’s ability to rapidly convert from a manned to an unmanned aircraft opens up a whole new universe of flexibility. Just being able to self-deploy an aircraft with MALE capabilities to forward operating locations by having a pilot onboard solves many issues that dog relatively advanced unmanned aircraft till this very day.

Unlike its unmanned counterparts, Firebird doesn’t need to be able to be broken down and stuffed in ‘caskets’ before being loaded onto an airlifter and flown to where it is needed—an expensive and logistically complex affair that is outside the budgets of many potential customers that have a need for MALE capabilities.

Also, because of its ability to self-deploy, it seems as if Firebird ‘s designers weren’t constrained by the need to be able to ship the aircraft as a kit. As such, it could be optimized to its fullest potential for its intended operating envelope and mission set. What resulted was an elegant but also hardy twin-tail boom, two-seat design—one that can carry a big and diverse payload while leveraging a relatively pedestrian and comparatively ultra-efficient engine.

Firebird, which is not a small aircraft, with its big wingspan optimized for long endurance missions, runs on a Lycoming TEO-540 engine. This six-cylinder, turbocharged engine packs about 350hp in stock form and runs on the same 100LL avgas as a Cessna 152. In comparison, the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper/Predator B uses a Honeywell TPE331-10 turboprop engine, pumping out 900hp and slurping down jet fuel in the process. This alone is maybe the best indicator of just how efficient Firebird is, not just when it comes to doing more with less thrust in relation to raw performance, but also when it comes to overall operating cost. The cost difference of operating a light airplane piston engine compared to a turboprop is substantial.

Beyond the unique logistical challenges of moving unmanned aircraft over great distances and setting up operations in often unfamiliar areas, the flexibility of being able to fly manned or unmanned mission profiles based on the customer’s mission needs, the operating environment, and even their budget has the potential to be truly revolutionary.

The reality is that unmanned aircraft operations—at least the traditional kind where there are people “in the loop” flying the aircraft and operating its sensors via data-link—is not a cheap or simple affair. With man-in-the-loop operating concepts, unmanned aircraft are actually very much manned and quite expensive to operate when you factor in all the support infrastructure that is essential to bringing the capability to life. The fact that a pilot can just jump in Firebird and cut most of that infrastructure out of the cost-equation while still leveraging many of the aircraft’s unique benefits, efficiencies, and capabilities, is huge.

The Northrop Grumman official we talked to about Firebird made it clear that price point and flexibility will be the major drivers in making the program a success:

“It’s a capability that’s truly new in the space. And what we believe is a really competitive price point that’s going to allow us to provide an ISR capability so more customers can better have access to this level of capability than ever before. The key to how we are doing that is through the system flexibility. This is a system that’s all about flexibility.”

Sometimes it is just best to have a person in the cockpit for mission-related situational awareness reasons and it can be essential for flying in crowded and highly regulated airspace. You simply don’t have these options with a strictly unmanned aircraft. Also, when it comes to cost and flexibility, Northrop Grumman built Firebird with very austere operating locales in mind. The aircraft has a hardy landing gear and a tough airframe that allows it to be able to operate from semi-prepared fields, something nearly unheard of among the roster of unmanned aircraft with similar capabilities.

This also means Firebird can be based closer to the action, potentially cutting down on transit times drastically, and as a result also cost, or operators can use that time saved to enhance on-station time.

Payload-wise, Firebird and its open-architecture avionics system is all about moving away from heavily integrated sensors and communications systems and leveraging highly modular components with standard interfaces. As a result, Firebird can be so much to so many people without altering the airframe itself.

The Northrop Grumman official described the Firebird’s modularity in detail: “We have a sizeable payload bay for an aircraft of this size. It’s 45 cubic feet, fits two 19-inch racks and is really focused on flexibility and multiple payloads for ISR missions. There’s a number of serial and IP interfaces. We’ve demonstrated payload changes in as little as 30 minutes. We’ve demonstrated new payload installations in under a day. We’ve demonstrated over two dozen payloads integrated into this architecture, including EO/IR (Electro-Optical/Infrared), tactical radios, radar, signals and communication payloads, and we’ve also demonstrated operating four payloads simultaneously while imaging different areas.

This is truly a multi-int (multiple intelligence) flexible system. We designed it that way because we envision a broad range of payloads that our customers are going to want to bring to do a number of current and emerging missions across the mission space.”

Being able to pack radar, EO/IR, signals intelligence, and communications payloads all at the same time offers a big multi-spectral view of wherever Firebird is operating over at the time. The ability to exploit all this intelligence concurrently and in near real-time makes it far more impactful than the sum of its parts. This modularity and flexibility mean that one plane can be a lot of different things for different customers too, potentially resulting in a huge return on investment for Northrop Grumman.

Firebird’s potential applications aren’t just military in nature, either. They include commercial, scientific, law enforcement, and other federal agency work, as well. Pushing out over the ocean for maritime surveillance is also a very real possibility for this unique aircraft.

The Northrop Grumman official describes this possibility, along with many others: “One of the key differences between an over land and an over sea mission is the payloads you put on the plane. And Firebird is designed for payload flexibility. We have de-ice capability and a weather radar in the plane. So it’s designed for all weather, sometimes that can be a concern over the sea. But when you think about the kinds of ISR needs, it really runs the gamut. From what we view as traditional missions to an emerging need for law enforcement, forest service, environmental missions, scientific ISR and, climate change. Even commercial ISR is becoming a growing market, with oil and gas, pipeline monitoring, and disaster zone monitoring. We’re really thinking about this as a product line because we’re thinking about the broad range of markets that we can touch in that way. Because it’s such a big market, we’re looking to build an ecosystem of industry partners to help us get access to the enormous amount of global markets this platform is going to be relevant in.”

There are indicators that Northrop Grumman is going to bridge Firebird’s mission flexibility with business model flexibility that will provide potential customers a menu of options for accessing the aircraft and modular payload components to fly on it. Selling aircraft outright in a traditional sense is still an option, but being able to lease the aircraft on multiple levels could also be highly attractive for less cash-rich customers or for those who just are not in need of large enough ISR capacity that would necessitate standing up a dedicated fleet of aircraft.

As for Firebird’s aforementioned flight testing, it is proceeding at a quick pace with two aircraft now in the test program. According to our sources, the aircraft is already exceeding many of its design goals, but it’s still early on in the testing process. If everything goes as planned, the aircraft will be in a totally different developmental position by the latter half of 2019, at which time we may get some official performance metrics from Northrop Grumman. (Source: UAS VISION/The Drive)

13 Dec 18. Lockheed Martin readies its latest L-band radar for production. Lockheed Martin has completed the final full-scale prototype of its TPY-X multimission ground-based radar system and is now preparing to begin production. TPY-X was developed as part of Lockheed Martin’s long-term vision of continuous support and service for its existing long-range surveillance products, addressing obsolescence and enhancing performance as the threat has evolved. The L-band radar is scalable, has a modern digital architecture, a distributed architecture with digital beam forming, and uses gallium nitride semiconductors. The radar will be available in fixed and mobile variants. It is transportable via C-130 or C-17 cargo aircraft, truck, rail, or helicopter.

TPY-X is designed to provide increased performance against smaller threats in the clutter and electromagnetic attack environments that ground-based radars operate in, Mark Mekker, director of next-generation radars for Lockheed Martin, told Jane’s.

Since initially introducing the radar in mid-2016, Lockheed Martin has completed several designs and releases of system builds at various levels, he said.

“Each one was used to flush out improvements for performance and manufacturability as part of our affordability initiatives,” he said. “The final version provided what was needed to begin the production process for initial release.”

For its new radar, Lockheed Martin leveraged development and production radar programmes that offered direct-use technology, such as the leveling legs and rapid emplacement capability from the TPQ-53 radar system, Mekkor said.

Lockheed Martin continues to utilise the prototype TPY-X system to validate and qualify hardware designs leading into a production release. The system also serves as an asset to use as software baselines are finalised.

“We can use the actual AESA [Active Electronically Scanned Array] antenna to test our SW [short-wave] functionality and control instead of relying on models and simulations,” Mekker said. (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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