The latest ADS report, "Defense Electronics Industry Review: July 2011" covers defense industry news in July 2011. The focus is on news related to defense systems/electronics and avionics emphasizing radar, communications & navigation, electronic warfare, weapon systems, sensors and others.
International activity provided the largest contract awards for July with Thales and Dassault involved in a deal worth about $1.42 billion as part of India's plans to upgrade its Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft fleet. Meanwhile the UK has signed a deal worth $1bn with the US Government for three RC-135W Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The MoU establishes a cooperative agreement through to 2025 for the support of the UK Rivet Joint system while also partially bridging the gap in capabilities between the decommissioned Nimrod R1s and the introduction of the RAF's new aircraft.
The increasing pace of AESA-based capability deployment was also being demonstrating with Northrop Grumman's RQ-4B Block 40 Global Hawk completing its first full system flight with the high performance AN/ZPY-2, also referred to as the Multi-Platform Radar Technology Insertion Program (MP-RTIP) sensor. This will deliver long range, very high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR), ground moving target indicator (GMTI) capabilities and air target tracking. The flight took place at Edwards Air Force Base, CA, on July 21.
Sticking with phased array technology, M/A-COM Tech, announced that the Multifunction Phased Array Radar (MPAR) Panel has been named as one of R&D Magazines' 2011 R&D 100 Winners. Co-developed by M/A-COM Tech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory under sponsorship from the Federal Aviation Administration, the MPAR Phased Array Panel aims to consolidate up to eight separate radar systems.
On the weapons systems front, Raytheon was awarded a contract modification for engineering and technical services in support of the MK15 Phalanx Close-In-Weapon System. The contract combines purchases for the United States government and the governments of Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan under the Foreign Military Sales Program.
Harris continued to dominate contracting activity in the communications sector with several contract awards totaling over $76 million with the Falcon III AN/PRC-117G featuring prominently amongst the orders for Falcon II and Falcon III variants. Meanwhile NovelSat claims to have the solution to MilSatCom bandwidth constraints with its NS3 satellite transmission modulation technology that the company claims can improve satellite bandwidth by up to 78%.
On the EO-IR side, BAE Systems was awarded another task order to produce the Driver's Vision Enhancer Family of Systems (DVE-FOS), a system of infrared sensors that provide 24-hour all-weather visibility for operators of U.S. Army and Marine Corps vehicles, while Cassidian announced a contract to provide its missile launch detection system (MILDS) equipment for KAI Surion transport helicopters operated by the South Korean army.
Space was a focus for digital processing with both Microsemi and Xilinx were targeting space-based applications. Xilinx announced availability of its radiation-hardened-by-design space-grade Virtex-5QV FPGA, while Microsemi was claiming to be the first FPGA supplier to achieve AS9100 Rev C certification for aviation, space, and defense markets.
Finally, on the RF component front, Hittite unveiled several products that included aerospace and defense amongst the target applications. TriQuint also unveiled a high-linearity power amplifier designed using the firm's GaAs power pHEMT production process to operate at 10?12 GHz for X-band communication applications.
TriQuint also announced the appointment of a new VP for its Defense and Aerospace business. James Klein was most recently with Raytheon in the Space and Airborne Systems division and responsible for design and manufacturing of advanced RF and microwave subsystems and components. He'll be working with TriQuint's current VP and General Manager of Defense and Aerospace, Thomas Cordner during a transitionary phase before Mr. Cordner retires after a successful career. We wish Tom the best of luck in his future endeavours.