Following a successful series of trials in a U.S. Air Force F-16 that began late last year, Northrop Grumman’s SABR (scalable agile beam radar) has been refined to the point where the company says it is ready for production. Since receiving limited export clearance in February, Northrop Grumman has been actively marketing the radar upgrade to a number of F-16 users, and it hopes the U.S. Air Force will move ahead with an F-16 radar upgrade. There currently is no formal U.S. requirement, but that could change very soon, possibly in the next month.
SABR leverages Northrop Grumman’s position as a supplier of active electronically scanned antenna radars for the F-16 Block 60, F-22 and F-35, and also draws on the company’s experience as the incumbent mechanically scanned radar provider for the F-16. By changing two elements– the antenna and the combined receiver/exciter/processor unit– SABR upgrades the current F-16 radar to provide, at a considerably reduced cost, all the benefits that active electronically scanned array (AESA) provides.
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