Northrop Grumman Announces Successful G/ATOR AESA System Tests

Northrop Grumman Corporation today announced a prototype partial array antenna representative of the US Marine Corps Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) active electronic scanned array (AESA) has completed successful testing at a company antenna test range in Norwalk, Conn., where all planned test objectives were met.

This provides a high degree of confidence that the first EDM fully populated array (currently under integration/test) will likewise be a success.

The antenna tests successfully demonstrated key radar building blocks for the G/ATOR system including transmit and receive functionality, hardware and software communications, array tuning and calibration techniques. The partial array is now being integrated with additional radar subsystems for follow-on testing at Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Systems sector headquarters in Baltimore. Meanwhile, a second G/ATOR AESA is scheduled for testing at the Norwalk test facility later this year.

“G/ATOR’s true multi-mission capabilities will change the way the Marines fight and win,” said Pat Newby, vice president of Weapons and Sensors for Northrop Grumman’s Land Forces Division. “The successful results from the radar array tests provide a high degree of confidence that the array design will meet or exceed all system performance requirements.”

G/ATOR is a highly mobile multi-mission radar that will replace and enhance the functionalities of five of the six current US Marine Corps ground-based radars, providing significant increases in operational capabilities as well as large reductions in operations and maintenance costs. G/ATOR is the first ground based multi-mission radar to be developed by the US Department of Defense.

The heart of the G/ATOR system, the AESA, is comprised of an integrated network of mini-radars in the form of transmit/receive modules that enables G/ATOR to successfully detect, track and engage numerous different target types, at multiple positions and in varying paths and trajectories. The flexibility of G/ATOR’s AESA architecture also enables growth to address additional missions.