U.S. – Australia Relations

Australia and USA to Collaborate on Radar Research

Canberra — 22 March 2004

DSTO 7/04

The Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) will soon begin a 5-year collaborative research program with the USA to enhance Australia’s use of radar in defence. Australia’s airborne early warning and control aircraft will be among a number of radar projects to benefit from the new research agreement.

"This arrangement will have direct benefits for the development of Australian and US microwave radar systems," said Dr Len Sciacca, Chief of DSTO’s Electronic Warfare & Radar Division.

The research is part of the new Project Arrangement 35, which will include modelling and simulation of radars as well as radar detection performance prediction in a variety of environments.

DSTO will work closely with the US Air Force Research Laboratory to undertake a variety of studies into multi-channel active array radar modelling and simulation.

"The results of the research are likely to be critical to long-term radar support and the development of future phased array radars," Dr Sciacca said.

"A variety of current Australian Defence projects will benefit directly from the research, including the Wedgetail airborne early warning and control system being developed for the Royal Australian Air Force."

Australia’s future air warfare destroyer and Ballistic Missile Defence radar systems will also benefit."

The new Project Arrangement will utilise world-class research into sensor scheduling and adaptive radar signal processing already underway at DSTO’s Centre of Expertise in Networked Decision and Sensor Systems, located at the University of Melbourne.

"This Centre of Expertise already has multiple industry participants from both Australia and the US, as well as significant funding from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the US Air Force," Dr Sciacca said.

"A new Centre of Expertise in Microwave Radar is also being established soon at the University of Adelaide. These two Centres of Expertise, along with this new project arrangement with the USA, are a strong indication of the growing focus on Microwave Radar research and development in Australia and the USA."

Original document from www.defence.gov.au.

Last update: Tuesday, 12 August 2008 GMT+1000