Engineers at Lockheed Martin Corp. in Bethesda, Md., working on the U.S. Army’s Tactical Reconnaissance and Counter-Concealment Enabled Radar (TRACER) program, sought the optimal electronics chassis for the system.
Lockheed Martin personnel turned to engineers at SprayCool, maker of thermal management solutions in Liberty Lake, Wash.
Lockheed Martin previously won a roughly $40 million contract awarded by the Army to incorporate low-frequency synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems into Predator class unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as part of the TRACER program.
The TRACER will help soldiers find hidden targets, facilities, buried weapons caches, and improvised explosive devices. The system takes advantage of Lockheed Martin’s foliage penetration (FOPEN) technology, which was developed to detect vehicles, buildings, and large metallic objects in locales having dense foliage, forested areas, and wooded terrain.
The radar will deliver images to ground units in all-weather conditions, day and night. “SprayCool enables us to develop a radar solution that is independent from an aircraft’s environmental control system,” says Robert Robinson, Lockheed Martin’s TRACER program manager. “This is extremely valuable for our team, and our Army customer, because we can now efficiently integrate the TRACER system into other low- and high-altitude manned and unmanned aircraft as requirements evolve.”
As part of the program, SprayCool will provide Lockheed Martin with the digital receiver/exciter (DRE) chassis, a primary component of the dual-band synthetic aperture radar. For additional information, visit SprayCool online at www.spraycool.com.
