Navy asks General Dynamics to provide SEWIP Block 1B3 shipboard electronic warfare (EW) systems
WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy shipboard electronics experts are asking General Dynamics Corp. to provide additional electronic warfare (EW) systems for Navy surface warships under terms of a $9.7 million order announced Thursday.
Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington are asking the General Dynamics Mission Systems segment in Fairfax, Va., for Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement program (SEWIP) Block 1B3 full-rate production units.
SEWIP is an evolutionary acquisition program to upgrade the existing AN/SLQ-32(V) shipboard electronics EW system through a modular, open-system approach. The system provides enhanced shipboard EW for early detection, analysis, threat warning, and protection from anti-ship missiles.
SEWIP Block 1 focuses on obsolescence mitigation and special signal intercept. This equipment will provide SEWIP with the ability to detect and identify additional threat emitters and provide warning to the combat system to enhance SEWIP capabilities.
The SEWIP program is upgrading the AN/SLQ-32(V) by improving the receiver and antenna group to meet current and anticipated threats, as well as to yield improved system integration, Navy officials say.
Since the SEWIP program started in 2002, General Dynamics has acted as prime contractor for SEWIP blocks 1A, 1B1, 1B2, and 1B3. Lockheed Martin Corp. won a Navy award for SEWIP block 2 in late 2009.
In early 2012, Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin formed a team to capture a Navy award for the system's newest generation, SEWIP Block 3. The different SEWIP variants will help counter hostile electronic signals actively and passively.
The Lockheed Martin-Raytheon team demonstrated the Block 3 SEWIP in 2012 during the RIMPAC naval exercise in the Pacific. Lockheed Martin in Liverpool, N.Y., won a contract in 2013 to build advanced-development prototypes of the SEWIP Block 2 system.
Related: Shipboard electronic systems pursue open architectures
Developed by Raytheon in the 1970s, the original AN/SLQ-32 systems employed passive radar technology for early warning, identification and tracking of enemy threats. Subsequent upgrades provided an additional active capability for simultaneous jamming of several different threats.
On Thursday's order, General Dynamics will do the work in Pittsfield, Mass.; Thousand Oaks, Calif.; Mountain View, Calif.; and Fairfax, Va., and should be finished by May 2020.
For more information contact General Dynamics Mission Systems online at https://gdmissionsystems.com, or Naval Sea Systems Command at www.navsea.navy.mil.
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John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
