Northrop Grumman Offering AESA Fire Control Radar for F-16 Aircraft

Released on Tuesday, February 19, 2008

LINTHICUM, Md., Feb. 19, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) unveiled a new company funded program to develop an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) at the Singapore Air Show. The Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) will be a full performance fire control AESA derived from proven AESA technology for light tactical aircraft. SABR is being designed for retrofit to existing F-16 aircraft and can be scaled to fit other platforms and mission areas.

"SABR is the most recent development in a long line of Northrop Grumman AESA airborne fire control radars," said Chris Sheppard, F-16 Sensor Systems Program Development manager. "SABR will offer all the advantages of an active electronically scanned multi-function array, more than just a radar, but at a lower price than AESA fire control radars now available."

"We look forward to supporting the F-16 aircraft worldwide for at least 30 more years, and SABR is our investment towards maintaining the F-16's combat capability. SABR leverages investment in technologies derived from AESAs produced for the U.S. Air Force and our international partners," said Sheppard.

Northrop Grumman is designing SABR to accommodate F-16 electrical and physical interfaces without modification to the aircraft. SABR will fit within currently defined power and cooling requirements and support the existing pilot-vehicle interface. Although currently being designed for F-16, the array is scalable and adaptable to other platforms and missions.

SABR will provide the increased multi-function performance inherent to AESA technology: improved situational awareness and detection, high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and interleaved air-to-air and air-to-ground modes provide pilots true all-weather, day or night precision strike capability. SABR demonstration flights are planned for later this year on Northrop Grumman's Sabreliner, which emulates the F-16 avionics suite and has been used for previous F-16 radar testing.