Message posted by Smythers (Member since 01/10/2010) on February 27, 2023 at 23:39:20 PST:
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., March 11, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) will help the U.S. Air Force enhance the surveillance capabilities of aerial vehicles by embedding antennas in the primary load-bearing structures of composite aircraft wings. The new approach could lead to antennas as large as the surface area of a wing with enough sensitivity to simultaneously detect ground-moving targets through dense foliage and track air-to-air missile threats. Northrop Grumman and the Air Force Research Laboratory will share the costs of maturing the antenna integration technology under a five-year, $12 million effort called the Low-Band Structural Array (LOBSTAR) program. The effort could benefit unmanned aerial reconnaissance systems such as the Air Force's Global Hawk, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Joint Unmanned Combat Air System, and the Air Force Research Laboratory's future Sensor Craft concept. "Conformal load-bearing antenna structure (CLAS) technology converts otherwise passive structures, such as a wing, into a system element that increases avionics performance and reduces airframe weight and cost," said Allen Lockyer, Northrop Grumman's LOBSTAR program manager. "It also allows us to implement mission functionality that simply would not be possible using conventional antenna technologies." ************************************* The LOBSTAR program represents the first government-funded application of CLAS to low-frequency radar and large primary wing structures. The large surface area dedicated to the antenna provides the needed gain and coverage to detect slow moving targets masked by heavy jungle foliage, a task that's been previously deemed impossible with conventional antennas.
I no longer have the link, but this below was a snippet form a 2004 press release from NG.
Northrop Grumman has previously used CLAS technology to increase the functionality of other passive aircraft structures such as the tail and the fuselage, he added.
In Reply to: Northrop Grumman EMRIS posted by Smythers on February 27, 2023 at 6:33:10 PST:
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