Helicopter EW: Integrate, Fuse, Collaborate (JED)

Northrop Grumman has undertaken an upgrade of the APR-39 that enables the RWR to serve as the integrated ASE controller for all warning and countermeasures functions. Again, the solution is based on software packages and not "boxes." This is important when you consider the installed base for the APR-39 stretches across almost the entire tactical rotary-wing inventory of the DOD, as well as hundreds of international platforms. The goal is to leverage as much of the existing APR-39 inventory as possible by replacing circuit card assemblies and software rather than the entire system. Using this approach, APR-39 users can upgrade their way to a modern ASE capability without buying entirely new EW systems. This saves money on both the systems themselves and the A kits (harnesses, wiring and antennas) on the aircraft.

Northrop Grumman has found a visionary customer in the US Marine Corps. The Marines understood early on that they needed to build integrated capability
within the existing ASE footprint on its helicopters. It already flies with the APR-39 across its fleet, and the RWR seemed like the perfect place to add the required processing horsepower needed to drive an integrated ASE suite that can take full advantage of the multi-function performance of new sensors (like IR-based missile warners). "You can take the APR-39 and laser warning inputs and lay them in over the IR picture. And if we see something that we want to look at, that information and the geolocation of that information is sent to the APR-39, and the APR-39 has the ability to cross cue other systems and sensors to that location," said Jeff Palombo, vice president and general manager for Northrop Grumman’s Land and Self Protection Systems Division.

The APR-39 takes it a step further. Serving as the EW suite controller, the system can automatically detect and identify threat types, including bearing and lethality levels, and then alert the crew to each threat with a symbol on the cockpit multifunction display and with audio threat warnings. The US Marine Corps can use the APR-39 technology on its MV-22 Ospreys, which features a glass cockpit where the full threat picture is stitched together in a 360-degree common display for flight crews.

In order to get that picture, Northrop took another page from the fighter aircraft world, essentially using the camera on the missile warner – which provides a detailed IR picture from four or five sensors – to help provide the overall 360-degree image that can be stitched together. "Very similar to the DAS capability on the JSF, we can do this with these sensors on the helicopter. So, tremendous situational awareness around the entire helo from the same exact sensors that DoN LAIRCM is flying today. It also provides visual situational awareness in a degraded visual environment," Palombo said.

The benefit of doing this through the APR-39 is that it's already on more than 2,000 helicopters. So the functionality can be incorporated using the existing A-kit configuration, saving on the real integration costs. "The fact that the APR-39 sits in a location where it already collects data from each of these systems on the bus...it can be done with minimal expense and change to the aircraft as they are flying today," Palombo said.

Article reprinted with permission from JED, The Journal of Electronic Defense, July 2011.

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