Will Be Installed In Raptors Beginning Next Year
BAE Systems' digital
electronic warfare system (EW) has successfully completed the first
phase of developmental flight tests on the U.S. Air Force's F -22A
Raptor. The tests of the digital EW system were conducted aboard
Raptor "4009" at Edwards Air Force Base, CA, over the past four
months.
The flight tests are part of BAE Systems' F-22A Product
Improvement Program. In 2004, Lockheed Martin -- the F-22A prime
contractor -- selected BAE Systems' digital receiver technology as
the baseline EW system for future production lots on the new Air
Force fighter.
The digital EW system exploits breakthroughs in commercial
analog-to-digital (ADC) technology and Field-Programmable Gate
Arrays (FPGAs). It replaces older analog receiver technology with
reconfigurable digital receivers - providing cost, power, and
weight savings for the F-22A.
"BAE Systems has met all of the digital EW program commitments
and is delivering enabling technology to help the F-22A meet future
war fighter mission needs," said John Paquet, director of Missions
Systems and Software at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, to
Aero-News.
"This Product Improvement Program will result in production cost
savings in excess of $90 million for near-term production lots,"
said Bill Hill, Digital EW program manager for BAE Systems at
Nashua, NH. "The new programmable digital hardware requires fewer
unique parts, improves reliability, and substantially decreases the
supportability cost."
The flight tests culminate a three-year engineering and
manufacturing development effort. The new digital EW equipment will
be introduced in BAE Systems' Lot 5 production deliveries, that
will be incorporated on the aircraft beginning in 2006.
As was reported in Aero-News last
week, the F-22A Raptor just received its initial
operating capability sign-off, meaning the aircraft is now ready
for operational deployment on the front lines throughout the
world.
BAE's Product Improvement Program began as a company funded
research and development effort, sponsored by the Aeronautical
System Center at Ohio's Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, to build a
wideband, channelized digital receiver. The success of that effort
stimulated Congressional support for the cost-saving opportunity to
fund a Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) project to mature
the implementation of the technology.