The Navy and Raytheon [RTN] conducted the first system-level test of the SPY-6(V)2 Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) at the Surface Combat System Center at Wallops Island, Va., recently, the company said Tuesday.
Raytheon said the first test had the radar search for, detect, identify, and track several targets, including commercial aircraft.
Then in a second test, the radar tracked multiple targets continuously for several hours during a test event involving a separate system. Raytheon said this was enabled by the “maturity of EASR integration.”
The S-band EASR is the latest sensor in the Navy’s SPY-6 family of radars, which provides anti-air and anti-surface warfare, electronic protection, and air traffic control for amphibious warfare ships and aircraft carriers.
Once EASR’s system-level testing finishes in the last quarter of 2019, the system is set to move from the engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) phase to production. The first delivery of AN/SPY-6(V)2 is scheduled to be to the future USS Bougainville (LHA-8), an America-class amphibious assault ship.
“Moving quickly from radar installation at Wallops Island to ‘tracks on glass’ in less than three months is a major accomplishment,” Capt. Jason Hall, program manager for Above Water Sensors in Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems, said in a statement.
“The EASR program is progressing extremely well. We are now one step closer to production and delivering the radar’s unmatched capability to the surface fleet,” he added.
Raytheon is developing and building two variants of EASR: a single-face rotating array for amphibious assault ships and Nimitz-class carriers, designated AN/SPY-6(V)2, and a three fixed-face array for Ford-class carriers and the future guided missile frigate, FFG(X), designated AN/SPY-6(V)3.
The first carrier to receive the SPY-6(V)3 will be the future USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) while the Ford uses the Dual band Radar originally built for the Zumwalt-class destroyers.
Both versions of EASR use a scalable Radar Modular Assembly (RMA) technology and a software baseline matured via development and test successes of the AN/SPY-6(V)1, which is the Navy’s program of record radar for the Arleigh Burke-class DDG-51 Flight III destroyers.
Each RMA is a contained radar within a two-foot by two-foot by two-foot box. The individual small radars can integrate to form arrays of various sizes for different missions and ships.
The company underscored the EASR adds air traffic control and weather capabilities to the SPY-6 software baseline in RMAs.
The company first won a $92 million contract to develop the EASR in 2016, with EMD scheduled to end by February 2020. That contract included production options for up to 16 units that could raise the total value to $723 million (Defense Daily, Aug. 22, 2016).
When the contract was originally awarded, the Navy said EASR will be the primary air surveillance radar supporting ship self-defense, situational awareness, and air traffic control for Ford-class carriers. In other ship classes, EASR will act as the primary radar for self defense and situational awareness while being the backup radar for air traffic control.