The U.S. Navy’s early-warning radar aircraft, the Hawkeye,
could be certified by 2003 as a data source for the service’s
cooperative engagement capability (CEC) network of shipboard air-defense
sensors.
CEC is a sensor-netting mechanism to generate and distribute fire-control
data on enemy aircraft and missile threats across a battle group.
It provides a common picture of those threats by combining information
from multiple sensors into a single track.
The program, so far, has focused on the CEC shipboard hardware
and software. The E-2C Hawkeye aircraft has been used in recent
tests of CEC at sea, but only as a data-relay platform. Its radar
data was not used to validate the performance of CEC.
The next step for the Navy is to incorporate the data from the
Hawkeye radar into the CEC network and certify that the information
is reliable enough to be part of the battle group’s common
air picture.
The service expects to complete the integration of E-2C into CEC
in time for a scheduled deployment of the USS Nimitz battle group
in fiscal 2003. When the USS Kennedy battle group deploys in 2002,
the E-2C will not be certified for the CEC network.
The Navy’s policy is to “freeze” software configurations
of a major weapon system 12 months before deployment, so the E-2C
CEC software will have to be ready by January 2002, said a spokesman
for Capt. Dan Busch, program manager for CEC. “As trouble
reports are generated in the course of testing, they will be corrected
up to six months prior to the deployment,” he said.
During the next five years, the Navy plans to buy 21 new E-2C aircraft,
called the Hawkeye 2000, which will be CEC-compatible, program officials
said. The E-2C, which operates from carrier decks, has been around
since 1973 and is equipped with the APS-145 radar. The new Hawkeye
2000 will have the same radar, but more advanced computers and communications
capabilities. Northrop Grumman Corp., in Bethpage, N.Y., received
a $1.3 billion contract from the Navy, in 1999, to build the 21
aircraft.
The software that will be integrated with the Hawkeye for next
year’s test is called CEC baseline 2.0. It is the same version
that the Navy plans to install on ships. The current prime contractor
for baseline 2.0 is the Raytheon Company’s command, control
and communications division in St. Petersburg, Fla. The company
also is developing an upgraded baseline, called 2.1.
A CEC suite already has been installed on an older Hawkeye. Once
the first Hawkeye 2000 aircraft has the CEC equipment on board,
Navy testers will begin formal evaluations in mid-2002. Testing
will continue through 2003. At that point, the E-2C would be a certified
sensor and data provider in the CEC network, said W. Clifford Clegg,
Raytheon’s director of advanced tactical programs.
The airborne CEC suite consists of seven boxes, to include the
antenna, processors, digital distribution systems and power converters.
The hardware currently weighs 686 pounds. Raytheon plans to cut
that weight down by 90 pounds during the next several years, said
Clegg.
The spokesman for Capt. Busch noted that there are long-term plans
to integrate the E-2C Hawkeye with CEC baseline 2.1, which Raytheon
plans to complete within the next two years. The integration work
with CEC 2.1 could take place as late as January 2004. Baseline
2.1 will be compatible with the Navy’s ship self-defense systems
on board aircraft carriers and amphibious ships.
The Navy also has funded the development of another baseline, called
2.2, which will be compatible with the Aegis combat system and with
the Navy’s area missile-defense capability. The contractor
for this version of CEC is Lockheed Martin’s naval engineering
division, in Moorestown, N.J. The company plans to compete against
Raytheon for future CEC production contracts.
Orlando Carvalho, director for Aegis development at Lockheed Martin
said the company currently is not involved in any “preparation
to support” the E-2C testing planned for next year. “I
am not sure what the role of Aegis is in that test,” he said
in an interview.
Lockheed Martin, meanwhile, has been “in negotiations”
with the Navy to secure more funding for baseline 2.2, said Julian
Warrick, the company’s program manager. He estimated that
the development of CEC 2.2 will cost about $36 million, Warrick
told reporters in an April briefing.
Navy officials pointed out that all three baselines of CEC will
be compatible with each other.
The integration of Hawkeye with CEC baseline 2.2, however, has
not been funded by the Navy yet, said Marc A. DeBlasio, program
director for airborne early-warning systems at Northrop Grumman.
“In my opinion, baseline 2.2 will cause changes on the airborne
side [of CEC]. Lockheed Martin is still struggling with the architecture
and how they will implement it in the CEC battle group,” DeBlasio
told National Defense. One big unknown, he said, is whether the
Navy will endorse a networking technology called TCN (tactical component
network) to be bundled into CEC 2.2. TCN is made by a small engineering
firm in Laurel, Md., called Solipsys. Lockheed Martin wants to include
TCN in baseline 2.2, but the Navy has not made up its mind about
this new technology yet.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding TCN, Busch does not expect
significant technical hurdles in the integration of the aircraft
with CEC 2.2, he said. “CEC 2.2 should preserve the functional
and interface compatibility with CEC 2.0 and 2.1,” said his
spokesman. In the Hawkeye, “CEC 2.0 and 2.1 exchange the same
information using the same protocols, so there is no need to change
hardware or software within the E-2C when loading either program.”
DeBlasio explained that any upgrades in the CEC software are supposed
to be transparent to the E-2C airborne node. “We don’t
expect having to change our tactical software program to match up
with the baseline 2.1,” he said.
Northrop Grumman submitted an unsolicited proposal to the Navy
to conduct a TCN experiment with the Hawkeye at the company’s
lab. “We have not heard back from the government on whether
they will fund us to do that,” said DeBlasio. Even though
the proposal was put together at company expense, he added, Northrop
Grumman would not move forward with any experiments unless they
were Navy-funded.
The first new Hawkeye 2000 will be delivered in October. That aircraft
will not have the CEC suite installed because the CEC hardware will
not arrive at Northrop’s plant until September, said DeBlasio.
“That’s too close to the delivery of the aircraft.”
In the Hawkeye 2000, the old mission computer was replaced by a
lighter system that takes up about two-thirds less space, thus making
room for the CEC equipment, said DeBlasio. Because CEC demands more
power than average computers, the contractor added more generators.
The Hawkeye functioned as a relay platform during the operational
testing of CEC at sea last month, so the data from the E-2C surveillance
radar was not taken into account in the CEC evaluation.
The current radar, called the APS-145 does not provide fire-control
quality data. But for the CEC program, the issue, rather, is the
maturity of the software on the E-2C, said DeBlasio. “The
CEC software and our software haven’t gone through formal
qualification testing,” he said. “Our turn comes next
year.”
In the CEC network, the E-2C will see a threat approaching before
the ships can detect it, DeBlasio said. The radar horizon of the
ships thus can be expanded.
There are long-term plans to develop a new, more advanced radar
for the E-2C. The 145 has a mechanically-scanned rotor dome radar
antenna optimized for operations over water. The new radar would
have electronically-scanned arrays that would fit inside the existing
rotor dome. It would enable detection of small targets over land,
at longer ranges and track them, even when there is a lot of clutter
on the ground. The development of the new radar, which industry
sources estimated would cost up to $2 billion, has not been funded
yet. Northrop Grumman’s director of airborne early-warning
systems, Kenneth Tripp, said that the company could have the new
radar installed by 2010, if production were approved by 2007.
Northrop’s plan is to incorporate this radar into a new generation
of E-2C called Advanced Hawkeye, said Tripp in a briefing to reporters.
The improved fire-control quality of the radar will help CEC, he
said, because it will allow Aegis ships to engage targets at extended
ranges using data from other platform sensors. That capability is
called engage-on-remote.
Raytheon and Northrop Grumman are hoping that the United Kingdom
will buy the Hawkeye 2000, along with the airborne version of CEC.
The U.K. government already has purchased ship-borne CEC systems
but will not make a final decision on the Hawkeye until it completes
a study on its future aircraft carrier.