Lockheed Demonstrates Anti-UAV Radar Capabilities

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Now that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are prevalent, the need for reliable and effective anti-UAV systems is becoming more urgent. We have written about several systems designed to track and monitor drones, but the majority of these are either not yet ready production ready or do not meet the exacting demands armed forces place on their equipment. Lockheed Martin’s system may prove just the right solution for such requirements.

Lockheed Martin has successfully demonstrated its AN/TPQ-53 counter-fire radar’s ability to monitor UAV traffic and effectively pass that information to command and control structures in order to answer emerging air-threats.

“The demonstration showed that the Q-53 radar can provide soldiers in combat real time awareness of air threats,” said head of the TPQ-53 project Rick Herodes. “The inherent flexibility of the Q-53’s active electronically scanned array (AESA) hardware architecture allows us to constantly evolve the Q-53’s software to deal with emerging threats. This demonstration provided further verification that the Q-53 enables the warfighter to stay ahead of changing global threats.”

The demonstration took place as part of the US Army’s Manoeuvre and Fires Integration Experiment (MFIX). During the demonstration, the radar was shown to be easily adaptable to “provide both air surveillance and counter fire target acquisition in one tactical sensor,” Defense World reports.

In the exercise, Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control used the radar to identify and track numerous UAVs simultaneously with performing its original mission of acquiring targeting data on mortars, artillery, and rockets.

The multi-mission radar (MMR) capabilities of Lockheed’s TPQ-53 may be just the solution the modern army requires to effectively handle the emerging UAV threat.