Semiconductor Today:
Raytheon Company of Waltham, MA, USA has given the US Army a look into the future of missile defense technology, as the firm provided its comprehensive vision for the next generation of air and missile defense radar. The information was supplied to the Army as part of its process to define the requirements for a future Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS).
“Raytheon’s solution for the LTAMDS is based on the more than $200m that the company has invested in gallium nitride (GaN)-powered active electronically scanned array (AESA) technology,” says Ralph Acaba, VP of Integrated Air and Missile Defense at Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems business. “Raytheon showed it can quickly and affordably design, build, test and field a GaN-based AESA radar capable of defeating all threats when we exhibited a potential LTAMDS solution at the winter AUSA tradeshow this past March,” he adds.
Raytheon’s GaN-based AESA LTAMDS radar is designed to serve as a sensor on the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System network. It will be fully interoperable with NATO, and also retains backwards compatibility with both the current Patriot system and any future system upgrades fielded by any of the 13 nations that currently own Patriot.
“Others may draw on lesson learned from the terminated MEADS air and missile defense project or repeatedly re-baselined naval radars; Raytheon’s LTAMDS solution builds on successful programs such as the US Navy’s Next Generation Jammer and the Air and Missile Defense Radar,” says Doug Burgess, director of Integrated Air and Missile Defense AESA programs. “Our response, and our AESA GaN radar rollout at AUSA, show there doesn’t need to be a wait of a decade or longer to get the sensor of the future. It will be available much, much sooner.”
