Oz Navy world's first to take 4 th-gen active PA naval radar
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Wow.Sound damn interesting!!
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Australia Pushes Radar Technology Boundaries
By Gregor Ferguson
Published: 20 October 2008Sydney - The Royal Australian Navy may be the world's first to take a fourth-generation active phased-array radar to sea when a preproduction sensor participates in a naval trial in the Indian Ocean next month. In addition, concurrent ship upgrade programs will improve the combat capability and survivability of its existing fleet of FFG-7 and Anzac-class frigates.
The Navy will mount a CEAFAR radar, manufactured by CEA Technologies, Canberra, aboard an Anzac-class frigate in a final risk-mitigation exercise before the system is retrofitted to the entire fleet of eight Anzac frigates. An earlier prototype had been evaluated at sea in 2005, but next month's trial will be the first of a fully digital fourth-generation radar with production-representative power levels and signal processing algorithms.
Testing of CEAFAR production radar arrays has commenced on the rooftop of the CEA Technologies facility in Canberra, said Ian Croser, technical director at CEA Technologies.
The rooftop testing will be immediately followed by an at-sea demonstration on an Anzac-class ship, using a specially designed mobile dual-face configuration.
"We have diverted significant resources and energy into this extra at-sea demonstration opportunity at the request of the DMO Project Office, but we consider the extra benefit is worth the very tight schedule and the risk that this presents," said Croser.
"This demonstration has taken advantage of an early alignment of equipment, software and Anzac class ship availability. This presents an additional but important risk mitigation opportunity."
The CEAFAR S-band search-and-track radar and its adjunct CEAMOUNT X-band target illuminating radar form the core of the 778 million Australian dollar ($539.3 million) anti-ship missile defense upgrade of the Navy's Anzac frigates under Project Sea 1448 Phase 2B. The first ship set of production radars will be installed aboard HMAS Perth in January 2010.
Because they handle crossing as well as head-on targets, the CEAFAR/CEAMOUNT combination will increase the Anzacs' self-defense capabilities as well as their ability to protect other ships around them.
The CEAFAR sensor is much lighter than existing search-and-track radars and its beam can be steered rapidly or focused to overcome jamming and clutter. The CEAMOUNT target illuminator can also shift its beam rapidly from one incoming target to another, ensuring each target is illuminated to guide an Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile to intercept it, while continuing to track other targets.
This provides the ships with multiple channels of fire; at present they have only one, provided by their mechanically steered Saab 9LV illuminator.
The Anzac fleet is undergoing a series of upgrades, including the installation of Harpoon anti-ship missiles, a torpedo defense system, mine- and obstacle-avoidance sonar, a Sagem infrared search-and-track sensor and an upgraded Saab 9LV Mk3E combat management system to handle the higher data throughput.
A former Navy director of maritime development, retired Commodore Paul Greenfield, said the Navy "will be very impressed by the capabilities of the Anzacs' new weapon system, including the radars."
CEAMOUNT's fourth-generation technology clears the bottleneck created by mechanically steered target illuminators, which limit the number of targets a ship can engage simultaneously, Greenfield said.
Fourth-generation radar sensors are all-digital, Greenfield said, and each of the 1,024 transmitter/receiver modules on the antenna face can be controlled independently, allowing the use of different wave forms to overcome jamming and background clutter. In the future, with the right processing capabilities, fourth-generation radars will be able to function as high-capacity data links or control UAVs.
Only two companies, CEA Technologies, of which Northrop Grumman owns a 49 percent stake, and Lockheed Martin are developing fourth-generation sensors, Greenfield said. CEA is working under a 21 million Australian dollar research and development contract from the Defence Material Organisation (DMO) to develop high-power active phased-array radar technology under the joint U.S.-Australia AUSPAR radar research program, launched in 2005.
Meanwhile, the Navy is expected during the week of Nov. 18 to formally accept the first three of four Adelaide-class FFG-7 frigates upgraded by Thales Australia, here, under a 2.1 billion Australian dollar contract. The fourth ship should be accepted around mid-2009, said Chris Lloyd, Thales project director.
The upgrade is two years behind schedule but will extend the lives of the FFGs to 2021 and increase their point and area air defense capabilities, pending their gradual replacement from 2015 by three new Aegis-equipped Hobart-class air warfare destroyers.
The three ships accepted next month - HMAS Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin - will be fitted with the new Australian Distributed Architecture Combat System (ADACS) developed by Thales Australia. The first naval combat system developed entirely in Australia, it includes a new electronic warfare and torpedo defense system, and an upgraded fire control system, the Mk92 Mod12, which will control both the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile and the Standard Missile-2. This is the first time either missile has ever been installed aboard an FFG-7 frigate.
The Standard Missile-2 will be installed next year under a separate contract, according to Mal Adams, the DMO's FFG upgrade project director.
The ADACS also includes a Link 16 tactical data link terminal, the first ever installed aboard an Australian warship. This will enable Australia's FFG-7s to exchange tactical data, including radar and other sensor information with allied ships and aircraft as well as the Royal Australian Air Force's F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets, its Boeing 737 Wedgetail early warning aircraft and with its new air defense command-and-control system, code-named Vigilare.
Link 16 isn't in service elsewhere in the Navy, so Thales and the Navy validated its performance earlier this year with the help of a visiting U.S. Navy destroyer equipped with Link 16. â– --EOQ
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3778074
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can SG DSTA and DSO etc learn somethings from this projects?
HMAS Anzac. FFH 150. Anzac Class Frigate. (The ANZAC Class is based on the German Meko 200 frigate design with eight ships being constructed in Australia). RAN photo.
http://www.diggerhistory2.info/graveyards/pages/history/2005.htm
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Wow! No Aussie Bashing this time... nice one!
Content 7.5/10
Language 1/10 (you copy n paste most of it, penalized for "@@@@@@@", "sound", and "somethings")
Organization 3/10 (most of the organization done by defensenews)
Brownie points, 2 pts for Picture and links.
Total : 13.5/30
Almost racked a decent post there Lionnoisy. Keep up the good work!
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Originally posted by Shotgun:
Wow! No Aussie Bashing this time... nice one!
Content 7.5/10
Language 1/10 (you copy n paste most of it, penalized for "@@@@@@@", "sound", and "somethings")
Organization 3/10 (most of the organization done by defensenews)
Brownie points, 2 pts for Picture and links.
Total : 13.5/30
Almost racked a decent post there Lionnoisy. Keep up the good work!
dude you give him too much credit.
he's setting it up for something. i can almost smell his plans burning in the oven.
he'd try to prop it up as a wow, australia is doing something right. and next, he'd slam them hard on not being able to intergrate their systems properly or screwing things up.
and @ lionnoisy :
in case you havent realized, STK dosent integreate much. DSTA handles the army IK2C intergeration projects (A.K.A software), with STK usually handling the "hardware" aspects.
take a look at the Primus (which in case you have no idea , means FIRST in latin, aptly reflects the product nature) STK handled the joining of the turret with the chassis of the Bradley.
DSTA handled the integreation of the BMS and customizing the FCS for our usage.please use www.dictionary.com to check defintions before you spew them out like garbage out of a trash can.