HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Lockheed Martin [LMT] has developed a new ground-based radar to perform air surveillance.
Unveiled at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium that took place in Huntsville on Aug. 16-18, the TPY-X radar can detect manned and unmanned aircraft, cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles at ranges of up to about 250 nautical miles, said Paul Goulette, Lockheed Martin business development manager for ground-based radar. The company has tested it against airborne targets, including small fighters.
The rotating radar can be configured for short-, medium- or long-range surveillance. At the symposium, it was set up for long-range detection and was about 30 feet tall. The digital, software-defined radar also can be adjusted to defend against new electronic attack threats.
“The big advantage, really, is that it’s flexible and that it’s easily changed in terms of what it can do,” Goulette said. “It’s scalable because it has these modular building blocks, so you can make it bigger or you can make it smaller.”
TPY-X is intended mainly for the export market, but its technology could be applied to the U.S. military, including the Army’s Patriot radar replacement program and the Air Force’s Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar (3DELRR) program, according to Lockheed Martin.
“Everybody needs surveillance radars,” Goulette said. “There are a large number of radars out there that could be replaced by such technology.”