Submarines May Have Nowhere To Hide With U.S. Navy Set To Field Radical New Radar
The U.S. Navy may gain the ability to locate submarines from the air as a radical new radar finally moves into the deployment phase.
The Raytheon AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor (AAS) is a giant radar mounted in a pod under the Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. It’s a solid-state ultra-fast electronically-scanned array: unlike the old rotating-dish radar under a dome, it has no moving parts and moves at the speed of digital.
When in use, a hydraulic arm lowers the pod clear of the aircraft’s engines, giving it a clear 360-degree view of the sea below in all directions. The project came out of the highly classified "black" world, and details are still shadowy. We do know, however, that it can operate in a variety of different modes, from scanning broad areas to shooting a tight beam of energy to take a high-resolution radar snapshot from long range, or tracking multiple moving objects as small as individuals on foot. It provides monochrome images with photograph-like resolution in all weathers, through clouds and in darkness.
The sensor has been in development since 2009 with flight testing since 2014. Operational testing has been budgeted to continue through the current fiscal year. No updates have been issued although this January the Navy announced it was working on maintenance training systems for the AAS, suggesting that they were expecting deployment soon.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2020/11/16/new-us-navy-airborne-radar-may-spot-submerged-submarines/?
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