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Industry Team Pushes Radar “Leap-Ahead” Technology


Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org

A Northrop Grumman-led industry team with Lockheed Martin and L-3 Communications has tested a unique application of the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for high-bandwidth communications. Northrop officials say that the technology breakthrough demonstrated with the F-22 fighter’s AN/APG-77 radar aperture and a common data link modem emulator mean Northrop’s AESA and L-3’s CDL modem can transmit both communication and imagery data at two to four times the standard modem speed. They say the capability directly supports emerging non-traditional ISR efforts, especially efforts to have the F-22 and F-35 transmit and receive large, uncompressed data packages and images within seconds.

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org