Northrop Grumman Awarded Contract for Nine GaN G/ATOR Systems

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Northrop Grumman Corporation received an award from the U.S. Marine Corps for an additional nine AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) low rate initial production (LRIP) systems.

These nine additional systems and all subsequent G/ATOR systems incorporate advanced Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology, providing the Marine Corps with nearly $2 million in life cycle cost savings per system. GaN technology also provides a number of performance benefits including lower input power needs, higher efficiency and higher output power. This higher output power can substantially increase threat detection and tracking ranges for all four G/ATOR mission capabilities: air surveillance, weapon cueing, counter-fire target acquisition and air traffic control. Northrop Grumman is already on contract to provide six G/ATOR LRIP systems, the first of which will be delivered in February 2017.

“There are no other GaN ground-based active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars in production today,” said Roshan Roeder, director, mission solutions, Northrop Grumman. “G/ATOR is the first DoD ground-based AESA system to incorporate GaN in a production program. We proposed this technology as a cost savings measure for the government and funded risk reduction internally to ensure a seamless insertion into the G/ATOR system. We are continuing to look at future technology insertions to continue providing the best capability out there to our warfighters at an affordable cost.”

About Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman is a leader in the developd- and ship-based applications. The company's family of ground radar systems includes the AN/APG-83 Highly Adaptable Multi-Mission Radar (HAMment of AESA radar systems and is also on contract to develop and test high-performance, short- and medium-range radars for additional DoD grounMR) AESA system as well as the solid-state AN/TPS-78 and TPS-703 radar systems.