New Raytheon radar for Navy passes key design reviews

The U.S. Navy's next-generation air and ballistic missile defense radar from Raytheon has successfully completed critical design reviews.

The hardware Preliminary Design Review and the Integrated Baseline Review of the Air and Missile Defense Radar, or AMDR, were "key milestones" of the Navy's acquisition plan and underscored the maturity of the radar's design, Raytheon said.

"The maturity of our technologies, processes and infrastructure serves as a solid foundation for our ongoing development," said Raytheon's Kevin Peppe, vice president of Integrated Defense Systems' Seapower Capability Systems business area. "With the technology risks retired in the earlier technology development phase and cost reduction initiatives already implemented, we're now fully focused on the fabrication of the AMDR system and completion of the engineering and manufacturing development phase."

Raytheon's AMDR will be the Navy's first truly scalable radar, the company said. It is built with radar building blocks that can be grouped to form any size radar aperture, and all power, command logic and software are inherently scalable.

The AMDR is small in size, taking up less space on board ships, and will allow integration with new technology developments.

Raytheon did not say when the two reviews were completed.