Navy chooses sensor datalink from L-3 Communications-West to help helicopters and warships share information

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md. – U.S. Navy shipboard communications experts needed a digital datalink to enable the MH-60R multimission naval helicopter to share its sensor information in real time with surface warships. They found their solution from L-3 Communications-West in Salt Lake City.

Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., on Monday announced a $12.6 million order to L-3 to build and support the common datalink Hawklink AN/SRQ-4 systems for the MH-60R helicopter.

The L-3 rugged AN/SRQ-4 Hawklink shipboard terminal is aboard Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Ticonderoga-class cruisers, and provides command and control, sensor data transfer, datalink operation, and built-in test, L-3 officials say.

It enables surface ships and the MH-60R helicopter to share information from radar, video, network, and acoustic data interfaces, and enables naval personnel to exploit aircraft sensor data in real time to extend situational awareness over the horizon. It has a range of about 100 nautical miles.

The Ku-band communications system runs on an open-systems architecture with touch-screen interfaces. Its 43-inch direction a antenna offers auto-switching between open-loop pointing and closed-loop tracking, depending on the range between the helicopter and the ship.

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The terminal is interoperable with the AN/SQQ-89 warship undersea warfare combat system and shipboard navigation sensors. It is software-configurable with Common Data Link (CDL) waveforms, and is compatible with SAU7000 digital messaging interfaces.

In addition to the MH-60R helicopter, the system also can work with the Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, and the P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft.

On this order L-3 will do the work in Salt Lake City; Atlanta; Mountain View, El Cajon, Sunnyvale, Oxnard, and Salinas, Calif.; Exeter and Dover, N.H.; Derby, Kan.; Boise, Idaho; York Haven, Pa.; Bohemia, N.Y.; Littleton and Stow, Mass.; Providence, R.I.; Cedar Park and Fort Worth, Texas; Minnetonka, Minn; Phoenix; Skokie, Ill.; and Toronto, and should be finished by December 2020.

For more information contact L-3 Communications-West online at www2.l3t.com/csw, or Naval Air Systems Command at www.navair.navy.mil.

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