Raytheon builds Next-gen radar LTAMDS for U.S. Army
The US Army gave Raytheon a new kind of contract to build future radar. Originally envisioned as simply an upgrade for the iconic, but aging Patriot missile defense system, the Lower-Tier Air & Missile Defense Sensor has evolved into a multi-purpose radar that can share data with multiple kinds of command posts and launchers and not just with Patriot over the Army’s new IBCS network.
Raytheon acquired this contract worth $384 million to carry out the creation of six frontman units of LTAMDS. The Army is rapidly working to deliver initial capability under an urgent material release.
Raytheon has taken its years of experience in refining gallium nitride technology at its Massachusetts-based foundry to help design a new radar system. It is intended to provide the Army with a 360-degree threat detection capability in a configuration that includes one large array in the front and two smaller arrays in the back. During testing, the LTAMDS antenna array’s performance was surveyed against the simulated targets. The range was climate controlled in an enclosed atmosphere.
The company finished building the first radar antenna array in less than 120 days after being selected for the job, following a competition to replace the service’s Patriot air and missile defense system sensor.
Raytheon has been functioning closely with several suppliers across forty-two states to assemble the LTAMDS solution. They are:
- Crane Aerospace & Electronics
- Cummings Aerospace
- IERUS Technologies
- Kord Technologies
- Mercury Systems
- nLogic
Why LTAMDS is a Futuristic Radar?
Raytheon’s LTAMDS is powered by gallium nitride and includes digital receiver/exciter technology and digital beam forming software. The radar is specifically designed to offer support for the Guidance Enhanced Missile - Tactical Ballistic Missile and the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement and will bear the capability of interoperating with future army weapon systems.
The LTAMDS are thought to overcome modern-day dangers of the likes of, hypersonic weaponry and is expected to substitute the current radar of the U.S. military's Patriot defense system.
The radar should easily tie into the Army’s future command-and-control system — the Integrated Battle Command System — because it was designed “native to that network,” Bob Kelley, Raytheon’s director of domestic integrated air and missile defense programs for business development and strategy, said.
