Northrop Grumman Corporation plans to show-off its Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems ‘including Airborne Early Warning and Control systems for maritime reconnaissance, Fire Control Radars and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’, at Aero India 2011 in Bangalore, next week.
The defense company says it will feature an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye crew work-station among the exhibits and the Multi-Role Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar at the show, besides models of airborne surveillance systems like the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft System (BAMS UAS), the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) and the Fire Scout, vertical unmanned aircraft system (VUAS) multi-role UAV on display.
Northrop Grumman says the MQ-4C BAMS UAS is based on a maritime derivative of the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft with sensors and is a multi-mission maritime ISR system that will provide a continuous on-station presence while conducting open-ocean and littoral surveillance of targets. “Construction of the first BAMS UAS aircraft began in September 2010,” said the company in a statement.
The MQ-8B Fire Scout, it says, has been designed to accommodate a variety of sensor payloads and recently deployed for the first time aboard a ship with the US Navy. “An at-sea and land-based deployment is planned early this year,” said the company, adding, “The Fire Scout has demonstrated capabilities to operate from the deck of underway ships, from remote fields, and in desert environments.”
The LEMV is a ‘long endurance hybrid airship system’, three of which the company is developing for the US Army. Designed to be optionally manned and sustain altitudes of 20,000 feet for a three-week period, its final testing is planned for the end of the year.
Northrop Grumman is supplying the Early Warning Self-Protection (EWSP) and Electronic Support Measures (ESM) systems for the Indian Navy’s P-8I long range maritime aircraft. According to the company, the EWSP detects and defeats RF and infrared-guided missile threats and the ESM provides passive radar signals collection and location capability. The Embedded GPS/Inertial Navigation System (EGI) provides navigation data for the aircraft.
Northrop Grumman will also display a scale model of it’s Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) AN/APG-80 Fire Control Radar, proposed for Lockheed Martin’s F-16IN Super Viper, which is bidding for the 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) tender of the Indian Air Force (IAF).
It says that the AN/APG-80 ‘shares common architecture with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s AN/APG-81 radar and is the only AESA fire control radar in India’s MMRCA competition with operational experience’.
Besides this, Northrop Grumman will also display the STARLite, which it describes as a ‘small, lightweight wide area surveillance radar used for supporting tactical operations’. “STARLite features Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Ground Moving Target Indicator (GMTI) capabilities for unmanned and manned aerial vehicle applications,” said the company.
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