The company sent its cutting-edge test aircraft to validate the interoperability of its new electronic warfare system, with the AESA SABR radar, which will equip the F-16 Block 70/72.
Through a press release, Northrop Grumman reported that it was the first time that the Next Generation Electronic Warfare (NGEW) system joined the AN/APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) operating at the same time on the same aircraft.
The NGEW and SABR demonstrated their full interoperability in a realistic and contested electromagnetic spectrum environment during Exercise Northern Lightning.
«When an EW system and radar are able to fully work together, as demonstrated with NGEW and SABR, pilots can take advantage of the capability without compromise,» said James Conroy, vice president of navigation, targeting and survivability at Northrop Grumman. «With the radio frequency (RF) spectrum increasingly contested, this critical set of capabilities will support the F-16 for many years to come.»
Flying on the company’s test aircraft, NGEW and SABR demonstrated full pulse-to-pulse and multirole interoperability in a contested operational environment. With the SABR successfully engaging multiple air and ground targets, while NGEW detected and identified a range of modern threats, employing advanced jamming techniques capable of defeating those threats when necessary.
In the exercise, the two systems faced a high-density radio frequency environment generated by joint threat emitters provided by the Camp Volk Combat Readiness Training Center. These threat emitters enabled Northern Lightning participants to fly missions in representative conditions of complex electromagnetic spectrum environments, such as those expected to be provided by technologically advanced adversaries.
To conduct this mission, Northrop Grumman used its two CRJ-700 test aircraft (license N804X and N805X). Acquired nearly a decade ago and modified as flying laboratory, these aircraft often participate in large-scale combat exercises to test new systems and equipment, which will later be installed on combat aircraft.
Such highly realistic simulations are critical for eliminating errors, as well as for refining concepts of operation and use, which is as important as the new equipment itself.
NGEW, with its open architecture and high instantaneous bandwidth, is designed to defeat all types of modern electromagnetic spectrum threats. It will form an essential part of the self-defense system of future F-16V (modernized) and Block 70/72 (new) from 2022.
