Since
work officially began in January 2014, the Engineering and Manufacturing
Development (EMD) phase of the program – now 35 percent complete
- has advanced in design, risk reduction and maturity, placing it
on track for delivery to the Navy's Flight III DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class
destroyer. DDG 51 Flight III is scheduled to begin construction in
2016.
"Our
achievement of all plan milestones to date is a true testament to
our experts, our well-established radar development infrastructure,
and the collaborative working partnerships with the full government-industry
team," said Raytheon's Kevin Peppe, vice president of Integrated
Defense Systems' Seapower Capability Systems business area. "Continuing
on schedule, the AMDR program is on track to highlight and demonstrate
current system and technology maturity at the upcoming system-critical
design review--our next key validation and verification milestone."
Along
with the successful completion of all major contract design reviews
to date, throughout the first year of EMD, the program has:
-
Built a risk-reduction pilot array for hardware, software and integration
testing at the company's Near Field Range in Sudbury, Mass.
- Delivered the first of four 'builds' of working software in less
than eight months; Build Two is more than 50% complete.
- Software tracked simulated, simultaneous Anti-Air Warfare and ballistic
missile targets
- Completed the first Engineering Development Model production-representative
Radar Modular Assembly (RMA); currently testing in pilot array
- Completed a functional SPY-6 variant, scaled down to a single RMA,
actively tracking live targets using actual hardware and AMDR-derived
software
- Completed and delivered the first set of external combat system
interface definition language (IDL) to the Combat System Integration
Working Group, which includes the Navy and Lockheed Martin
- Continued progress with radar array production, including the completion
of more than 45,000 Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Gallium Arsenide (GaAS)-based
Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits and more than 400 Transmit/Receive
Modules; with more than 1,000 in progress
Raytheon has implemented an Agile development and management methodology
for AMDR. This approach supports the ongoing hardware and software
design verification, technology maturity, producibility, and risk-reduction
imperatives – yielding benefits in productivity, quality and
affordability.
SPY-6(V)
is the next-generation integrated air and ballistic missile defense
radar for the U.S. Navy, filling a critical capability gap for the
surface fleet. It is the first truly scalable radar, built with radar
building blocks (Radar Modular Assemblies) that can be grouped to
form any size radar aperture, either smaller or larger than currently
fielded radars. All cooling, power, command logic and software are
scalable. This scalability could allow for new instantiations, such
as back-fit on existing DDG 51 destroyers and installation on aircraft
carriers, amphibious warfare ships, frigates, or the DDG 1000 class,
without significant radar development costs.
Leveraging
GaN technology to optimize power in a smaller size and using less
space, power and cooling than older technology would require for the
same performance, AMDR is a key enabler for the capability and performance
enhancements of the new DDG 51 Flight III ship. SPY-6(V) for DDG 51
Flight III is designed with high operational availability and reliability
to minimize overall ownership cost.