by Thomas Withington
Thales
Thales unveils new naval surveillance radars, while BAE Systems is tasked with continuing electronic countermeasures work by the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency, and Harris reveals bandwidth enhancements for their tactical radios.
Thales launched its NS-200 naval surveillance radar at this year’s Euronaval exhibition. Development of the radar commenced in 2014.
Radar
Thales unveiled its new NS-200 naval surveillance radar at the Euronaval exhibition in Paris, with the radar displayed on 18 October at the show. This new addition to the Thales naval radar portfolio boasts an instrumented range of 215.9 nautical miles/ nm (400 kilometres/km) and employs an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) employing Gallium Nitride (GaN) in the radar’s antenna. Thales’ Netherlands subsidiary, based in Hengelo in the east of the country, commenced the development of the NS-200 in 2014. Although the radar has used Thales’ existing NS-100 naval surveillance radar as its baseline, it includes a number of important modifications improving the radar’s capabilities, notably an increase in the number of transmit/receive modules mounted on the NS-200’s antenna compared to those used on the legacy NS-100 system (see below).
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Like the NS-100, the NS-200 is an S-band (2.3-2.5/2.7-3.7 gigahertz/GHz) radar using a conventional pulse-Doppler architecture. Thales informed AMR that it is actively seeking customers for the NS-200, with the radar capable of equipping combatants varying in size from Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) to larger ships. As a means of comparison, the NS-100 has an instrumented range of circa 151nm (280km). This latter radar is currently equipping the eight forthcoming Republic of Singapore Navy ‘Independence’ class corvettes in a deal worth $57 million concluded in 2008. The radar is also used by the Royal Netherlands Navy’ (RNN) HNLMS Rotterdam amphibious assault ship, the installation of which, Thales disclosed is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Alongside offering the NS-200 as a standalone radar, Thales is proposing it as a part of a package to include the firm’s APAR-
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