Raytheon chooses Mercury for digital signal processing embedded computing for LTAMDS missile-defense radar

Nov. 12, 2019
Mercury's RF and digital processing building blocks feature Intel Xeon processors, GPGPUs, FPGAs, and are configurable to power complex AESA radars.

ANDOVER, Mass. – Radar systems designers at the Raytheon Co. needed high-performance digital signal processing and RF solutions for the company's Lower Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensor (LTAMDS) program. They found their solution from Mercury Systems Inc. in Andover, Mass.

Officials of the Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems segment in Andover, Mass., have selected Mercury to provide digital signal processing (DSP) and RF solutions for LTAMDS, the U.S. Army's next-generation missile-defense radar.

Raytheon reported last month that the Army had chosen the company to provide LTAMDS as the next generation, 360-degree capable radar that ultimately will replace the current U.S. Army's Patriot radars.

Raytheon won a contract worth more than $384 million to deliver six production representative units of LTAMDS, which will operate on the Army's Integrated Air and Missile Defense network.

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Developed to defeat advanced threats, Raytheon’s LTAMDS design features cutting-edge radar technology including gallium nitride, company officials say. LTAMDS is scheduled to reach initial operational capability with the Army in 2022. In addition to Mercury, LTAMDS uses a diverse team of suppliers across 35 states.

"We are looking forward to working with Mercury," says Doug Burgess, Raytheon's LTAMDS program director. "Mercury has a strong understanding of where we are heading from a technological perspective, which enables them to collaborate with us for innovative solutions for this key program."

Mercury's radar signal processing embedded computing subsystems for LTAMDS will be designed, built, and supported from trusted facilities certified by the U.S. Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA) in McClellan, Calif.

Mercury's open-system RF and digital processing building blocks feature Intel Xeon processors, general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and are configurable to power complex radars, including next generation active electronically scanned array (AESA) systems.

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The company's radar signal processing subsystems optionally include BuiltSECURE security systems engineering and extreme rugged packaging, and are sourced from managed and trusted suppliers.

Among Mercury's radar signal-processing components are 3U and 6U OpenVPX and AdvancedTCA radar compute building blocks with efficient cooling technology and fast software-defined switch fabrics.

These building blocks are optimized for size, weight, and power consumption (SWaP) performance and processing density, with streaming low-latency processing power and software.

For more information contact Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems online at www.raytheon.com, or Mercury Systems at www.mrcy.com.

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