radar derived from the S-band volume search radar antenna developed for the Zumwalt-class destroyer. In January, the S4R demonstrated a digital beam-forming capability
to locate and track targets.
Lockheed Martin also is installing
an S-band volume-search radar on
the Gerald R. Ford class of aircraft
carriers and has experience designing X-band radar systems.
Raytheon also brings design
experience that lends itself to the
AMDR program.
“We are the only company of
the three that’s actually been the
prime contractor and lead systems
engineer on dual-band radar,” said
Dan Smith, president of Raytheon
Integrated Defense Systems in
Tewksbury, Mass.
Raytheon is integrating the dual-band radar suites for the Zumwalt
destroyer and the new Project Cobra
Judy missile-range instrumentation
ship, Howard O. Lorenzen, that will
enter service in 2012.
Raytheon builds the SPY- 3
X-band radar for the Zumwalt class,
the Cobra Judy’s X-band radar and
the radar controller suites for both.
Raytheon also performs about one
third of the Aegis work, including
solid-state radar transmitters.
Lockheed Martin provides the S-band volume search
radar for Zumwalt, while Northrop Grumman provides
the S-band radar for Cobra Judy.
Raytheon will leverage its Zumwalt experience in
designing open architecture into the AMDR concept.
“Zumwalt was designed and built as the first and,
today, the only [ship design for which] the Navy really
owns open architecture,” Smith said. “There’s no proprietary data. The software code is owned by the Navy.
The documentation is owned by the Navy. It’s in the
Navy’s shared library.”
The Zumwalt’s dual-band suite was not required to
counter ballistic-missile threats, but the design gives
Raytheon a basis from which to build to AMDR’s ballistic-missile defense requirements.
“AMDR must be capable of operating in challenging
environmental and mission regimes against different targets and profiles with the addition of BMD [ballistic
missile defense],” Razavian said. “In order to meet these
multimission requirements, improvements in power,
U.S. NAVY
The Aegis guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie launches a modified Standard
Missile 2 Block IV interceptor June 5, 2008, during a Missile Defense Agency
test to intercept a short-range ballistic missile target. Three companies have
been awarded contracts to develop concepts for a shipboard Air and Missile
Defense Radar to equip future surface combatants and eventually succeed
the Aegis Combat System.
Digital beam forming provides improved performance over conventional beam forming in severe environmental clutter. It also increases search and track efficiency through the simultaneous use of multiple beams.
“This is right in line with what Lockheed Martin has
been doing for the U.S. Navy over the last 40 years,”
said Allan Croly, director of naval and space surveillance radar programs for Lockheed Martin Systems
and Sensors in Moorestown, N.J.
Lockheed is prime contractor for the Aegis system,
which is deployed or scheduled for installation in
more than 100 cruisers, destroyers and frigates in the
U.S., Australian, Spanish and Norwegian navies and
the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force.
“We’ve also done work with the Missile Defense
Agency in terms of ballistic-missile defense at sea, so we’re
looking forward to working on this program,” Croly said.
Lockheed Martin already has invested in advanced
S-band technologies and demonstrated an engineering
development model of its Scalable Solid-State S-Band
Radar (S4R), an active electronically steered digital array
