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2017-04-02

Northrop Grumman addressing challenges & driving innovation

The company reveals troop and equipment protection, robotic cargo carriers and advanced communication systems.

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC) unveiled its key defence capabilities recently during the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Global Force Symposium.

“The range of capabilities Northrop Grumman had on display at AUSA were another demonstration of our ability to work with customers and address challenges, drive innovation and continue partnerships against all potential adversaries,” said Walid Abukhaled, chief executive, Northrop Grumman Middle East region. “As a world leader in developing advanced, secure C4ISR systems that allow users to sense, share, collaborate and act with speed, Northrop Grumman enables its customers with the capabilities and support needed for a multi-domain battle.”

Command And Control

At the show, the company highlighted a broad range of capabilities to provide overmatch capabilities and readiness support for a multi-domain battle.

These included a family of air and missile defence and command-and-control programmes including Counter-Rocket, Artillery and Mortar (C-RAM) system; Integrated Air and Missile Defence Battle Command System (IBCS); and the Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS). These programmes were designed and developed to counter the set of threats against Army forces – from RAM to aircraft and helicopters to ballistic missiles.

C-RAM integrates existing field artillery and air defence sensors, a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) warning system, and a U.S. Navy-developed interceptor to protect forward-deployed warfighters from indirect fire threat.

First fielded at key military installations in 2006, C-RAM helps protect U.S. and coalition troops against mortar and rocket attacks. It uses sensor, command and control, and visualisation tools to detect incoming threats and locate their sources. Once C-RAM confirms the threat, its command and control (C2) system warns exposed soldiers, and provides track data to the intercept system to destroy the incoming RAM threat, and passes point of origin and point of impact information on to other systems and sensors.

IBCS

The IBCS is a command-and-control (C2) system developed to deliver a single, unambiguous view of the battlespace. This significantly enhanced aircraft and missile tracking improves the ability of combatant commanders and air defenders to make critical decisions within seconds. It enables commanders to tailor organisations, sensors and weapons to meet the demands of diverse missions, environments and rules of engagement not achievable today.

Furthermore, IBCS provides wider area surveillance and broader protection areas by networking sensors and interceptors as opposed to simply linking them. It replaces seven legacy C2 systems with a net-centric C2 to reduce single points of failure and increase the flexibility for deploying smaller force packages. The system also creates standard approach across forces to eliminate multiple logistics tail and change training paradigm and allows affordable integration of current and future sensors and weapons systems and modernization efforts. It establishes the means for connecting complementary and coalition systems for joint and cooperative multinational missile defense.

Joint Tactical Ground Station

The Joint Tactical Ground Station or JTAGS is an advanced missile early warning and cueing system. JTAGS receives and processes direct downlink data from spaced-based sensors on tactical ballistic missile (TBM) launches and disseminates the information to multiple users via line-of-sight, satellite communications and other in-theatre communications networks. JTAGS enhances operations by providing near real-time missile attack warning and ground impact estimates.

Northrop Grumman also displayed its integrated Battle Management System or iBMS that provides land forces with a modernized, proven, low-cost C4I system-of-systems and software to deliver digital C2 with automated situational awareness and warfighting functional information force-wide – from echelons above divisions, to brigades and down to squads to include command posts, vehicles and dismounted leaders.

Unleash The Hellhound

The Hellhound ground vehicle was also on display. It combines the latest innovations from the automotive racing community with emerging weapons and electronics technologies to provide a flexible, highly-mobile platform for the Army’s light forces. The vehicle’s unprecedented power generation abilities can support on-board systems as well as external equipment and facilities.

Hellhound addresses multiple Army war-fighting challenges faced by land forces today and is designed to maximise off-road capability to regain the advantage of manoeuvre and provide protection through speed and agility.

Meet The Camel

The Carry-all Modular Equipment Landrover (CaMEL) is a multifunction, robotic transport platform that can quickly transform, from supporting troops with lightening the load to clearing antipersonnel mine routes, to protecting troops as an armed wingman. It also can serve as a mobile communications and network retransmission platform.

CaMEL can operate in the most difficult of environments. Today’s soldiers often find themselves deep in unforgiving terrain, miles from their support base, and burdened with the extreme weight of equipment they need to live and fight. Rapid movement is a challenge – requiring time and resources they just don’t have. CaMEL is a robotic transport platform that provides users an unparalleled and vital equipment transport capability. CaMEL is a hybrid-motorised robot that can carry a half a ton of cargo across nearly any terrain. It is a multifunction platform that can quickly transform from supporting troops to protecting troops as an armed wingman, increasing the firepower of dismounted platoon and company manoeuvre units.

Enabling The Digital Battlefield

Northrop Grumman’s digital helicopter cockpit, which is derived from the U.S. Army’s UH-60V Black Hawk program, and integrated avionics solutions was also featured. The scalable, open architecture-based cockpit design can be applied to many platforms to provide an affordable, highly digital, integrated suite of avionics equipment.

The focus was also on the Longbow fire control radar that provides Apache aircrews with automatic target detection, location, classification and prioritisation, while enabling rapid, multi-target engagement in all weather conditions, over multiple terrains and through battlefield obscurants.

The AN/APR-39D(V)2 is a radar warning receiver and electronic warfare management system designed to maximise survivability by improving aircrew situational awareness via interactive management of all on-board sensors and countermeasures.

The company’s Large Aircraft Infrared Countermeasures (LAIRCM) system protects large aircraft from man-portable missiles, increases crew-warning time, decreases false alarm rates and automatically counters advanced IR missile systems by directing a high-intensity modulated laser beam into the missile seeker, with no action required by the crew.

Northrop Grumman’s Common signals intelligence (SIGINT) system (CSS 3400) builds on more than 45 years of success to provide operational commanders with near real-time intelligence, precise geo-location data and persistent targeting information.

Reference Text / Photos:www.northropgrumman.com

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