Northrop Grumman [NOC] said recently that it has successfully completed a series of demonstration flights of its Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) installed in an F-16 fighter aircraft at Edwards AFB, Calif.
The demonstration was in support of a U.S. Air Force F-16 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) feasibility study, according to a press statement.
SABR is a scalable AESA radar designed for retrofit in current F-16s and other legacy fighter, attack and training aircraft. Compared to mechanically-scanned array radars, AESA radars provide improved situational awareness, greater detection, high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) maps, interleaved air-to-air and air-to-surface mode operations and an all-environment precision strike capability.
“This demonstration validated our goal of developing an AESA that can be easily installed on the flight line and integrated with existing power and cooling provisions of currently fielded F-16s,” said Arlene Camp, director of Advanced F-16 Radar Programs at Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems sector.
“With regard to installed performance, SABR’s air-to-air and air-to-ground detection and tracking and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mapping performance met or exceeded our predictions,” Camp added.
Northrop Grumman has been the sole provider of radars for the F-16 over its decades of service. The company has produced more than 5,000 F-16 radars for the U.S. Air Force and 24 nations worldwide.