British electronics manufacturer Racal is so confident that it will be selected for the ASTOR airborne standoff radar contract that it's anticipating moves by competing consortia to undermine its UK-designed equipment.

"We expect every trick to try to overturn a British solution on the radar," Racal senior marketing manager John Palmer said at the show yesterday.

Racal Radar Defence Systems of Crawley is teamed with Gulfstream (provider of the Gulfstream V aerial platform), Lockheed Martin, Marshall Aerospace, Logica, GEC-Marconi, MSI and CAE to provide a ground surveillance radar which can scan far into hostile or closed territory. A decision in favor of one of three completing consortia is due to be announced next April or May to allow service entry in 2003.

Each contender is offering several options below a ceiling price of £750 million. Palmer expects that all will include "at least four aircraft; probably five; and possibly even six." The Ministry of Defence will weigh the different combinations of price, quantity and upgrade potential in arriving at its decision.

Lockheed Martin's pavilion contains a "sanitized" model of the Racal radar which will be rigidly mounted below the GV aircraft. Full details have not been released because of the sensitivity of the technology, although Racal is able to say that it is not a compromise modification of an existing system, despite radio frequency elements based on the Searchwater 2000 family of radars. Several other processing elements are commercial, off-the-shelf items.

After examining five potential alternatives, Racal finalized its design in 1996, opting for a large number of active, individually-controlled transmit/receive modules close to the radiating elements in order to provide adaptable beam shapes needed for the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mode. Power requirements are comparatively small, and well within the GV's capabilities.

Peter Andrews, the Racal ASTOR team technical manager, confirms that the company's submission-on which it, alone, has spent £20 million-meets requirements for motion compensation in SAR mode. In this, the radar takes two looks at a target from different points in its flight path to gain a high-resolution, "stereoscopic" effect. The Mach 3 SR-71 Blackbird flew smoothly in the stratosphere to obtain its SAR imagery, but in the comparatively bumpier air of 30,000 feet or so, the SAR picture will be distorted unless compensation for minor flight-path deviations can be introduced into the electronic processing.

Also of importance for Racal, says Andrews, is growth potential to meet future requirements. The scanner configuration enables the beam shape to be controlled and so makes possible the later addition of other radar modes.

Over 20 potential export customers are already talking to the Racal consortium. As these are NATO or similarly aligned nations in the Middle East, the consortium anticipates no export restrictions to apply, even for the U.S. technology contained in its ASTOR submission. Overseas sales could generate up to £500 million over 10 years, estimates Racal. However, it seems clear that in view of the further work to be done, Racal's ASTOR radar could not be offered overseas without having first received the UK contract.

The late addition of Northrop Grumman to the competition, apparently as the consequence of a government-to-government agreement, has been unwelcome to consortia which feel they reached the final solely on technical merit. Racal's insistence that its bid is, in John Palmer's words, "absolutely compliant with the requirement," makes the company resolute in resisting all other solutions.

By Paul Jackson