Leonardo marks major success for Osprey AESA radar with over 40 systems sold to eight customers

Leonardo, currently exhibiting at the 2018 Farnborough Air Show (stand L1), has today highlighted the success of its Osprey Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar family, announcing that more than 40 Osprey radars have been ordered by eight different customers. Leonardo expects Osprey to continue to rapidly grow its market share as it remains the only radar of its type available to offer full spherical coverage with no moving parts.

Osprey is already on-board Norway’s new Leonardo AW101 search and rescue helicopters, which have now started to be delivered, and has also been selected by the US Navy to equip its new MQ-8C Fire Scout unmanned helicopters. The reasons for the success of Osprey include exceptional mission performance and low through life costs due to its innovative AESA design.

Osprey builds on the success of the Company’s Seaspray family of AESA surveillance radars which have seen service with many armed forces and civilian agencies around the world, since the first Seaspray was sold in 2005.  Like Seaspray, Osprey employs AESA technology, also known as ‘E-Scan’, technology which Leonardo innovatively applied to Surveillance radars ahead of other radar manufactures. Today, having been sold to 30 countries, Leonardo’s AESA radars set the standard for surveillance radars internationally.

AESA technology involves a matrix of hundreds of tiny radar modules being used to ‘steer’ an electronic beam, rather than the radar physically moving to point at a target. This means the beam can be moved around extremely quickly, allowing the radar to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, for example carrying out maritime surveillance while at the same time monitoring weather along an aircraft’s flight path. Leonardo’s radars offer air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities with a variety of advanced modes including the company’s patented small target detection capability.