New modular, scalable radar passes Critical Design Review

An advanced integrated air and ballistic missile defense radar for the U.S. Navy has passed a critical design review by Raytheon and the U.S. Navy.

The CDR of the AN/SPY-6(V) system involved technical aspects of the program, from hardware specifications, software development, risk mitigation and producibility analysis, to program management, test and evaluation schedules, and cost assessments, Raytheon said, and confirmed the maturity of its design and technologies to meet all Navy radar performance requirements.

"This successful milestone is the culmination of our team's unwavering focus on continuous technology maturity, risk mitigation and cost reduction throughout all phases of development," said Kevin Peppe, Raytheon's vice president of Integrated Defense Systems' Seapower Capability Systems.

"With customer validation in hand, we will now advance production, driving toward the ultimate -- and timely -- delivery of this highly capable and much-needed integrated air and missile defense radar capability to the DDG 51 Flight III destroyer."

The Flight III variant of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is under development.

Raytheon said the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase of the AN/SPY-6(V) is still in progress and is now more than 40 percent complete.

The first Engineering Development Model production-representative Radar Modular Assembly is undergoing testing and its team has also delivered the first external combat system interface definition language increment to the government-industry team of experts from the Navy, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, which focuses on integrating the system with the Aegis combat system used by Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyers.

The AN/SPY-6(V) is a scalable radar built with radar modular assembly blocks that can be grouped to form any size radar aperture.