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Raytheon AN/SPY-6(V) AMDR Should Be Available to US Allies Following IOC in 2023

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Sea-Air-Space 2015 - Raytheon AN/SPY-6(V) AMDR
 
 
 
Raytheon AN/SPY-6(V) AMDR Should Be Available to US Allies Following IOC in 2023
 
At the Navy League’s 2015 Sea-Air-Space Exposition which was held last week near Washington DC, Raytheon company was showcasing its Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR). AMDR is the future AN/SPY-6(V) radar to be fitted on U.S. Navy DDG 51 Flight III guided missile destroyers. Navy Recognition sat down with the AMDR program manager to learn more about this next generation radar.
     
An F/A-18E Super Hornet fitted with two LRASM missiles.Raytheon AN/SPY-6(V) integrated Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) fitted on a US Navy's Flight III DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer scale model at SAS 2015
     
We asked Tad Dickenson, AMDR Program Manager at Raytheon (whom we interviewed on video at Sea Air Space 2014) about the challenges to integrate this new radar on the DDG 51 Flight III destroyers given hull space and power limits. He explained to us that with the Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology Raytheon could use fewer Radar Modular Assembly (RMA) therefore AMDR fits in. Thanks to the pilot array built at Raytheon's Near Field Range in Sudbury, Massachusetts, Raytheon knows how much each element weighs. Another contributing factor (to the reduced weight and energy requirement) is the fact AMDR started from a clean sheet. Tad Dickenson concluded with "We are right on mark for weight and we have power and cooling margins".

We also asked him about potential future export sales and integration of AMDR with foreign hulls and foreign combat management systems. The AMDR Program Manager started by explaining that "AMDR will be qualified in 2017 with an IOC (ed. note: Initial operational capability) scheduled for 2023". He then explained that Raytheon is waiting for US Navy policy before briefing a select number of allies. No country were specifically mentioned but Navy Recognition believes that Japan and South Korea are the most likely candidate as these two countries destroyer classes based on the US Navy DDG 51 (the Atago class, Kongo class and the KDX-III) with the existing SPY-1 radar. Tad Dickenson stressed the fact that AMDR's modularity allows it to be easily fitted on a large variety of ship designs from corvette to destroyers. He also explained that AMDR is a "plug and play" radar that may be integrated easily with non US combat management systems. We asked about Thales famous TACTICOS and he confirmed this CMS would not pose a problem.
     
Raytheon released a new AMDR video during Sea Air Space 2015
     
During Sea Air Space 2015, Raytheon announced that AMDR passed a number of key milestones. 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.