JLENS demonstrates waterway protection capabilities

Raytheon has announced that it carried out a number of tests in June on its Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defence Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS)to demonstrate the system’s ability to detect and track swarming boats in waterways from hundreds of miles away. As a result, the US Army will ‘soon have a system that enables [it] to protect sailors and safeguard commercial and military navigation in strategic waterways’.

During the tests, JLENS simultaneously detected and tracked multiple speedboats on the Great Salt Lake. The boats, similar to swarming boats in the inventories of hostile navies in high-threat regions, simulated a real-world scenario with a series of tactical manoeuvres at low and high speeds.

JLENS is an elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system. It uses an integrated radar system to detect, track and target a variety of threats. This capability better enables commanders to defend against threats, including hostile cruise missiles, low-flying manned and unmanned aircraft, and moving surface vehicles such as boats, SCUD-launchers, automobiles, trucks and tanks - and provides ascent phase detection of tactical ballistic missiles and large calibre rockets.

David Gulla, vice president of Global Integrated Sensors for Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business, commented on the results of the demonstrations, saying: ‘JLENS is affordable because during a 30-day period, one system provides the warfighter the same around-the-clock coverage that it would normally take four or five fixed-wing surveillance aircraft to provide. JLENS is significantly less expensive to operate than a fixed-wing surveillance aircraft because it takes less than half the manpower to operate and has a negligible maintenance and fuel cost.’