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2019-11-14
Alert to Danger :Radar Warning Receivers Help Pilots’ Decision-making
Travelling at Mach speeds, surface-to-air missiles can hit a target in seconds. As the world’s first all-digital radar warning receiver, Raytheon’s ALR-69A provides an affordable and effective solution for protection in the modern threat environment.
In those precious seconds of radar alert, the reality is that the earlier the warning, the more time a pilot has to make their critical decision to divert or engage. Enter radar warning receivers, or RWRs, which are receivers able to detect anti-aircraft threats, alerting pilots at a speed that gives them more time to take defensive measures.
Military cargo aircraft pilots are fully aware of the benefits of RWRs. “If you’re unaware of a threat, you’ll keep doing what you’re doing, possibly putting yourself in a deadly situation,” said Major Douglas Ferro, 118th Airlift Squadron, 103rd Airlift Wing, U.S. Air Force. “Radar warning receivers dictate tactics to degrade the adversary’s opportunity to engage us.”
In fact, any type of aircraft can become a target, be it manned or unmanned, strike or cargo, tanker or bomber as Gene McFalls, Manager at Raytheon Electronic Warfare Systems, recognises: “The problem today, as opposed to even 20 years ago, is the threats are so much more advanced with extended range and digital processing capabilities of the radar.” Formerly an Air Force B-52 electronic warfare officer and now Director of the Air Force Special Operations Command EW Reprogramming Centre, McFalls acknowledges that, “In the past, you could operate outside the Weapons Engagement Zone and still accomplish the mission, but now that zone has grown exponentially and it puts aircraft, like tankers, at risk.”
McFalls is also aware that today’s all-digital RWRs can process significantly more information and provide a threat’s location with precise accuracy. “Cargo guys go into austere environments – areas devastated by natural disaster or an airfield or road in the middle of nowhere,” he says. “The increased sensitivity and accuracy of a digital RWR is going to let them know exactly where the threats are and avoid them.”
Having flown C-130s in every deployment during Operation Enduring Freedom , Lt. Col. Cade Keenan of the 139th Operations Support Squadron, 139th Airlift Wing, knows first-hand that aircraft can utilise an RWR to fly into higher-risk areas. “Fighters, by virtue of their jobs, have to go into areas where surface-to-air missiles have not been taken down yet,” Keenan confirms. “Until RWRs, we had to wait until they were taken down. Now, we can go in before that.”
Why Use RWRs?
In their work, pilots are obliged to navigate through a wide range of signals in an electromagnetic spectrum crowded with cell phone traffic, long-wave and short-wave radio transmissions and microwave energy. Hence, aircraft systems must be able to differentiate between friendly and hostile signals for the benefit of pilots by processing massive amounts of data, and where failure to do so provides only an unknown signal notification with a great potential to confuse pilots.
Raytheon’s solution is an all-digital RWR called the ALR-69A, outfitted on the U.S. Navy MQ-25 and U.S. Air Force tanker and cargo aircraft, and is currently being tested on the F-16. As McFalls summarises, “If you get a lot of unknowns, then it’s confusing. You need more processing to tell you exactly what the threat is, and that’s what an all-digital RWR does.”
Raytheon’s Low-cost Self-protection
Raytheon’s upgraded AN/ALR-69A(V) RWR dramatically enhances aircrew survivability. It does so by providing “sensors forward” situational awareness at a substantially lower cost than competing systems.
The ALR-69A(V) features capabilities previously unattainable in a tactical RWR, enabling suppression of enemy air defences, easy cross-platform integration and, most recently, single-ship geolocation. Boasting enhanced spectral and spatial coverage for high-sensitivity detection in dense signal environments, the innovative, ALR-69A RWR is already installed on the U.S. Air Force C-130H and KC-46A, and is compatible with virtually any airborne platform.
A Modular, Open Architecture
Raytheon has designed the ALR-69A(V) for the utmost flexibility and growth potential. By integrating advanced broadband digital receiver technology with an open architecture design, the ALR-69A(V) manages to enhance traditional RWR performance while enabling new missions for the host aircraft.
Raytheon’s design allows cross-platform commonality, improved spectral and spatial coverage and easy integration with other ECM or radar systems, while the ALR-69A(V) relies on many commercial off-the-shelf components enabling ready expansion or upgrade. The extensive use of COTS parts and digital circuitry also ensures affordability and reliability, but also minimises any risk of parts obsolescence and lowers life-cycle maintenance costs.
The ALR-69A(V) boasts a 16-channel broadband receiver that can be easily reconfigured to support future applications. As converter technology continues to improve, users can boost response time and dynamic range by simply replacing a digital circuit card, while the extra pre-wired card slots enable interfaces to work with any electronic countermeasure or radar system.
Optimal 360 Coverage
The Raytheon RWR’s 360-degree coverage is provided by four receivers, each of which contains a wideband digital channelised receiver providing signal selectivity and high sensitivity in dense signal environments. The combination of narrow receiver channels and multiple channels supplies the selectivity required for high sensitivity and the management of interference, while ensuring rapid coverage of the threat spectrum and rapid response time.
For the ALR-69A(V), the result is unparalleled radio frequency compatibility, improved detection range and accurate, unambiguous identification of friend versus foe in dense signal environments. Therefore, it is of great benefit to pilots that the signals received are comprised both of threat signals and signals from wingmen, coalition partners and commercial operations.
Single-ship Geolocation
In the absence of any hardware modifications, the ALR-69A(V) can now offer aircrews additional options including its single-ship geolocation capability, a first for any RWR. Previously, aircrews were only presented with a rough direction of arrival for the threat signals received, but the ALR-69A(V) is now able to give them precise information on ground-based threat locations and precision-direction finding for airborne threats. This added capability enables the Raytheon RWR to assist with targeting solutions while continuing to identify threats in dense signal environments.
“Analogue systems get bogged down because they’re just like a huge vacuum, sucking up everything and trying to figure out what’s what,” Lt. Col. Keenan confirms. “Digital RWRs actually allow us to discriminate between the noise – literal noise and waveforms we’re interested in knowing about.”
Finally, it is worth highlighting some of the other great advantages of the Raytheon all-digital system. The ALR-69A(V) will be able to adopt new technologies in the future, including cognitive and artificial intelligence, so enabling systems to identify unknown threats in virtually real-time conditions.
“As air crew, all you want to do is accomplish your mission and get home safely,” says McFalls. “Electronic warfare – radar warning receivers – let us do that.”
Reference Text/image: www.raytheon.com
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