Defense Technology International - May 2008 - (Page 21)

GETTING SIRIUS Infrared sensor bolsters anti-ship missile defense JORIS JANSSEN LOK•HENGELO, NETHERLANDS he anti-air and surface-warfare capability of 16 Canadian and Netherlands frigates will soon be significantly enhanced now that a long-range, dual-band infrared searchand-tracking sensor developed by DRS Technologies and Thales has passed its ﬁnal test and qualiﬁcation milestone. Called Sirius, it is a fast-scanning (60 rpm.), 360-deg. rotating sensor that provides a continuous bi-spectral horizon search for anti-ship missile threats. To achieve this, the sensor head is equipped with long-wave (8-10 micrometers) and medium-wave (3-5 micrometers) infrared detectors, both cooled to 80K. Canada, acting also on behalf of the Netherlands, ordered 17 Sirius systems in April 2006, to equip the navy’s 12 Halifax-class patrol frigates and the Dutch navy’s four LCF-type air-defense and command frigates. The lead system to T be delivered is for Canada’s naval combat systems training center in Halifax. The C$168.5-million ($167.5-million) order followed a protracted development period that started in the mid1990s. This included the manufacture of a pre-production model for testing in cold- and warm-water environments in 2003-05. The trial platforms were a Dutch naval test facility overlooking the North Sea and the Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal, which was operating in the Caribbean. Thales says the live trials demonstrated that in littoral environments especially, the Sirius system is a “vital add-on to the above-water sensor suite, especially for defense against supersonic and subsonic anti-ship missiles.” The ﬁrst Sirius production system has completed its factory acceptance test, Thales says, and will be delivered to the training center in Halifax this spring. The THALES ﬁnal test took place on Mar. 27 at the Thales facility in Hengelo, Netherlands. The ﬁrst Sirius sensor for the Netherlands is scheduled for installation on the HrMs Tromp in June. The leading Halifax-class frigate to receive Sirius, HMCS Vancouver, is slated to have the system installed in August. The 12 Canadian ship sets will be assembled, tested and delivered by DRS Technologies Canada of Kanata, Ontario. Systems for the Dutch navy will come from Thales Nederland in Hengelo. Sirius uses infrared detectors with time-delay integration supplied by Selex Galileo, a Finmeccanica company in Southampton, England. These provide “unsurpassed sensitivity and a resolution of 0.2 millirad in order to detect very small targets,” says Rango Knepper, senior program manager at Thales. The primary function of Sirius is to provide local-area air defense and ship defense. “The sensor greatly enhances the ship’s survivability in case of an attack by supersonic or stealth missiles, and when active sensor performance is degraded by jamming, multipath or interference conditions,” Knepper says. The passive sensor can also be used for tracking surface targets, multispectral observation of coastal areas, search and rescue operations, detection of ﬂoating mines, or—in clear weather—as a contributing theater ballistic missile defense sensor that detects and tracks missiles hundreds of miles away while in their boost phase, he says. The long-wave and medium-wave infrared cameras can be independently adjusted in elevation between -4 and 68 deg. The dual-band sensor provides a high-power zoom capability for longrange digital visual identiﬁcation, which can be done while continuing to scan. An upgrade is planned to a 1-Gb. digital streaming video interface to further enhance this feature, although the ship would need to be equipped with a local area network that has sufficient capacity to support the increase in data volume. Alignment of the cameras is engineered to be extremely precise, because in dual-band operation, the system uses triangulation to dismiss false targets, like birds. Thales has developed tools to calibrate triangulation away from a home port—for example, when a replacement camera has to be installed during a deployment. ■ Sirius search-and-tracking sensor, from DRS and Thales, provides local-area air defense and ship defense. AviationWeek.com/dti MAY 2008 DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL 21 http://AviationWeek.com/dti

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Defense Technology International - May 2008

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