BAE Systems released a product suite called 3-Dimensional Advanced Warning System (3DAWS) that the company believes will significantly increase aircraft survivability from advanced threats.
Cheryl Paradis, director of threat warning system at BAE Systems, said Tuesday via a spokesman 3DAWS is comprised of two components: a passive threat detection system and the company’s passively-cued, radio frequency (RF)-based, semi-active 3D tracker. Paradis said when the passive system detects a potential threat, it cues the 3D tracker to interrogate the potential threat with an active radar “pulse.” That detection and interrogation process, she said, definitively confirms the potential threat as either an actual threat or a false alarm.
The product suite protects aircraft during complex, multi-threat engagement scenarios through a layered countermeasure defense, allowing aircrews to safely complete their missions, according to a company statement. BAE Systems believes 3DAWS not only maximizes the effectiveness of current flare and directable infrared countermeasure systems, but also provides the necessary tracking capabilities for future soft- and hard-kill countermeasure solutions to damage or destroy incoming threats.
Paradis said soft-kill countermeasure solutions, in general, are directed energy systems that damage an incoming threat. Hard-kill countermeasures, she said, are generally projectile-based systems that destroy the incoming threat.
There is no active Army requirement for 3DAWS, but Paradis said BAE Systems is promoting the product suite as a next-generation approach to advanced threat detection for rotary-wing and small fixed-wing aircraft. She believes 3DAWS is better than similar products on the market because today’s legacy threat detection and missile warning systems are passive detection systems. She said they assess threats using two-dimensional data, specifically azimuth and elevation, making the confirmation of threats much more difficult.
BAE Systems’ 3DAWS, Paradis said, contains a 3D tracker component that provides the third dimension of detection, specifically range. With improved threat confirmation, Paradis believes 3DAWS enables a smart, layered countermeasure defense, ranging from today’s flare and laser-based countermeasures to tomorrow’s soft and hard kill capabilities.
BAE Systems has also teamed with Leonardo to offer advanced threat detection capabilities for Army fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. This new collaboration will advance into new directions the threat warning techniques and capabilities leveraged from BAE Systems’ Common Missile Warning System (CMWS) and Leonardo DRS’ mature, high-performing infrared sensors specifically designed for the rotary-wing environment.