Advances in radar are key to countering the modern drone warfare and missile threat

Raytheon recently entered into an agreement with NATO to provide Patriot PAC-2 GEM-T (Guidance Enhanced Missile) interceptors, and NATO can now collectively manage the distribution of the missiles. (Raytheon photo)

The evolution of air and missile defense threats – including challenges posed by threats ranging from drone swarms to ballistic and hypersonic missiles – necessitates development of advanced radar and sensing systems that will allow air defense systems like Patriot to remain lethal for years ahead.

Breaking Defense discussed this challenge with Tom Laliberty, president of Land & Air Defense Systems at Raytheon, an RTX business, and how they can be addressed with radar advancements like the U.S. Army’s Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS), internationally through the GhostEye MR radar for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) developed jointly by Raytheon and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace (KDA), and in the counter-UAS role with the KuRFS radar and Coyote kinetic and non-kinetic effectors for the Army’s integrated counter-UAS solution called LIDS (Low, slow, small UAS Integrated Defeat System).

Breaking Defense: How have the threat scenarios evolved this decade given what we’ve seen in Europe and other AORs?

Tom Laliberty: What we’re seeing today is massive raid sizes with hundreds of missiles launched by the adversary and arriving from every direction. The adversary is trying to overwhelm air defense systems with a huge number of threats that must be dealt with simultaneously. The strategy is that if you’re busy dealing with all these low-cost threats, then the high-value ones – the ballistic missile, the high-speed cruise missile – will find its target.

For us, this means we have to build 360-degree systems that are robust enough to handle that complexity with sensors having the capability to manage that massive data set, ensuring that we’re prosecuting threats in a way that prioritizes those that could potentially cause the highest level of damage.

Tell us about Raytheon’s legacy in air defense systems that includes Patriot and NASAMS.

In air and missile defense, Patriot is probably the most well-known system. It’s now the system chosen by 19 countries, the latest being Ukraine. What’s advantageous about Patriot is that with those 19 customers, the community of users can essentially coordinate with the Army to share threat information, which enables us to continuously upgrade the system and make sure it’s operating at the highest level of maturity and at the cutting edge of dealing with any threat.

NASAMS is now the chosen medium-range air defense system for 13 countries. That’s a great system in terms of integrating capabilities from Raytheon’s Sentinel radar, to command and control from Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, and missiles from the Air Force and Navy portfolios, which are also produced by Raytheon – AIM-9X, AMRAAM, and AMRAAM-ER. NASAMS’ capability will be improved with the new GhostEye MR radar that is now undergoing integration testing. NASAMS with GhostEye MR and its family of effectors can deal with different classes of threats in the most cost-effective way.

For counter-UAS, we have the KuRFS radar and Coyote interceptor, providing the warfighter highly tuned radar capabilities paired with a cost-effective Coyote Block 2 effector to deal with low-cost threats. We also have a non-kinetic effector called Coyote Block 3 non-kinetic. Essentially, it flies out and performs a non-kinetic effect to disable a UAS, and then moves on to disable the next. We’ve done some recent testing, and it shows a strong capability against threatening drone swarms.

Staying with Patriot and NASAMS, you probably didn’t imagine pre-Ukraine that they would play such an important role in air and missile defense?

The two systems have been incredibly successful. While I can’t give you the actual number, there have been hundreds of successful intercepts, which has saved countless lives.

The Ukrainian air defenders I’ve talked to say that NASAMS and Patriot are really the backbone of their air defense architecture. There’s such amazing capability between the two systems.

How is Patriot evolving to meet these threats, including eventual integration with LTAMDS?

LTAMDS provides 360-degree coverage, whereas the Patriot is a sectored radar. LTAMDS provides about two and a half times the range and altitude than you have today for Patriot.

We’ve produced six urgent material release prototypes for the Army that are going through a wide range of testing. The most recent being just a month ago, which was a flight test against a sophisticated ballistic missile surrogate.

That’s put us on a steady path to Milestone C, which is set to happen in the first quarter of next year.

Describe the missions that LTAMDS and GhostEye MR support, and how they’re able to address evolving threats.

LTAMDS operates in the lower tier of air defense, which consists of a wide range of threats, both manned and unmanned aircraft, along with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and hypersonic missiles – the most threatening of the emerging threats.

GhostEye MR is a derivative of LTAMDS where we’ve scaled the LTAMDS radar down for NASAMS to address a wide range of air-breathing threats like cruise missiles, helicopters, aircraft, and UAS.

Both the LTAMDS and GhostEye variants share common features like AESA (active electronic scanned array) technology, digital beam-forming technology, and substrate technology called GaN (Galium Nitride). When you bring all these technological innovations together, you have radars with a robust radio frequency that operates at a very wide bandwidth, which can be optimized for the integrated air and missile defense mission.

Dealing with the high volume of threat objects in the air today, and being able to manage and guide the interceptors that you’re launching, is what the GhostEye and LTAMDS technology has brought to the table. It has created a transformational capability for the warfighter.

What’s the commonality/modularity between your Army radars like LTAMDS and the Navy’s SPY-6 radar?

The GaN, AESA, and digital beam-forming capabilities that I mentioned are all from a common set of technologies that Raytheon has developed for our radars. In addition, we now have a common software product line to build software in one common source code base that’s usable on all these radars. This translates into faster fielding and more efficient support.

Let’s move to counter-UAS and the combat-proven systems you have in that space, including both kinetic and non-kinetic solutions, especially for the LIDS program.

As part of the LIDS program, we provide the sensor, which is the KuRFS radar. It’s a Ku-band, highly sensitive and precise radar that’s useful for a UAS mission because it can distinguish non-threatening objects like birds from small UAS. The Army discussed the program recently and said there have been about 170 successful engagements – primarily with the Coyote Block 2 kinetic interceptor, which is a low-cost missile that intercepts UAS Groups 1 through 3.

The Block 3 effector has the ability to use a non-kinetic effector to go after multiple UAS. It then returns to the station, is recharged, and sent back up to continue the mission. It’s essentially a reusable effector, which delivers the advantage of increased magazine depth.

Then there’s our high-energy laser weapon system, HELWS, which has been integrated on Stryker vehicles as part of the U.S. Army’s DE M-SHORAD (Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense) program. Four units were deployed to CENTCOM for operational testing. The technology has performed well, and one of the things we continue to work with the Army on is the appropriate way to maintain those systems so that they can effectively operate in austere environments.

Raytheon is competing for the next-generation short-range interceptor (NGSRI) to replace the Stinger missile, which Raytheon produces as the long-time prime for Stinger. Tell us about the program and what Raytheon brings to the table.

The Army is looking for a next-generation MANPADS (Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems) to address evolving threats. I can’t say too much about the program because it’s competitive, but we believe our offering will provide the Army with a transformational short-range air defense capability.

We’ve been producing Stinger for decades, back to the Korean War, and with great success. This is going to be a revolutionary change in capability for a manageable, modular system that will serve the Army and Marine Corps well for decades to come.

Integrated air and missile defense and C-UAS solutions are in high demand across the globe, and Patriot and NASAMS, as we’ve discussed, have a large international customer base. What’s your outlook on the international market for IAMD?

Yes, there’s a widespread use of Patriot and NASAMS –19 countries for Patriot and 13 for NASAMS – and dozens that use Stinger. We service a wide range of customers for their air defense needs.

Given all the conflicts going on around the world, there’s a tremendous demand for these capabilities, and one of the advantages of using a system like Patriot is that it provides the ability for coalition forces to interoperate far more easily and even go beyond interoperation. It gets them to the point of being interchangeable – where you can take one country’s missiles and use them in the same air defense system, as well as sharing spare parts, soldiers, and specifics on tactics and ops for how to operate with the systems.

For example, at the end of 2023, we entered into an agreement with NATO to provide Patriot PAC-2 GEM-T (Guidance Enhanced Missile) interceptors. NATO can now collectively manage the distribution of the missiles as they come off the production line, and multiple partners can essentially aggregate their demand and leverage economies of scale.

With the investment from NATO, we can partner with additional suppliers in Europe and stand up a test and final assembly facility for these PAC-2 missiles.