Saab AB received orders worth almost $74 million for additional Giraffe AMB radar systems and upgrades of the existing systems and associated equipment from the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, the company said Monday.
The upgrade goal is to bring the existing U.K. systems up to the same production-build standard as new Giraffe systems. This will enhance the primary radar’s performance and capacity as well as keep the U.K. systems in line with the Giraffe product roadmap, Saab said.
This also allows for additional capabilities to identify small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) vehicles and the capacity to screen out clutter like birds, the company noted.
Photo: Saab Group
The Giraffe AMB is part of Saab’s Giraffe radar product family. This includes high-performance air and sea surveillance as well as target indication radars. The products provide very short to long ranges coverage, Saab said. The radar operates in environments including mountains, complex coastal regions, and wind farm areas.
The Giraffe also comprises “essential command and control for ground based air defence and sense-and-warn applications,” the company said in a statement
“The Giraffe AMB radar provides a full 360° update of the air situation out to 120 km every second,” Saab said.
The U.K. first acquired the Giraffe AMB surveillance radar system in 2008 as part of the Land Environment Air Picture Provision (LEAPP) program with the first deliveries in 2010. The system has detected and predicted the impact of incoming rockets, artillery shells and mortars, Saab noted.
“We are delighted to have agreed this significant expansion and upgrade of the Giraffe AMB fleet with the U.K. MoD. We are looking forward to supporting both potential mission deployments and further system evolutions based on our spiral development plan for Giraffe,” Micael Johansson, head of Saab electronic defence systems, said in a statement.
Order are expected to begin in the second half of 2015 and continue through 2018.