US Technologies to manufacture thousands of EW circuit card assemblies for Navy targeting drones
RIDGECREST, Calif., 13 Aug. 2014.Electronics contract manufacturing expert US Technologies in Fair Lawn, N.J., will build as many as 5,270 circuit card assemblies over the next five years for the U.S. Navy AN/ULQ-21 airborne electronic warfare (EW) system under terms of a $13.8 million contract announced Tuesday.
Officials of the The Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake Naval Weapons Station in Ridgecrest, Calif., are asking US Technologies to build AN/ULQ-21 technique control modulator (TCM) circuit card assemblies.
The AN/ULQ-21 countermeasures set is for aerial and surface targets using several weapons-replaceable assemblies configured for specific mission requirements. The AN/ULQ-21 is digitally controlled and provides the current threat with an innumerable combination of electronic counter measures (ECM) techniques.
The AN/ULQ-21 generates 24 ECM modes and innumerable combinations of these modes for multipurpose use in targets, aircraft internal or external stores, shipboard applications, laboratory applications, and at land-based instrumentation sites. Its several interchangeable modules allows for the configuration flexibility for many different missions.
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US Technologies will build AN/ULQ-21 TCM circuit cards that will be used in fleet training to provide threat detection and countermeasures systems. The cards will be integrated with other countermeasures or emitter modules for different system configurations. These circuit cards will be are installed in systems that are used to evaluate U.S. weapons systems.
US Technologies will manufacture E/F band (2-4 GHz) noise cards; G band (4-8 GHz) noise cards; I band (8-12 GHz) noise cards; J band (12-18 GHz) noise cards; CAN CPUIF cards; RGS AM cards; dual serro cards; advanced receiver cards; pulse 4 cards in standard and EA configurations; adapter cards; and TCM circuit card variants.
The Navy's AN/ULQ-21 can produce noise and deception techniques across the 850 MHz to 18 GHz frequency range that are either generic or validated high-fidelity simulations of specific foreign electronic attack systems.
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The selection of components determines the ECM techniques that can be used. Modules include special transmit antennas; multiple technique deception; memory modulator (E/F band); memory modulator (I/J band); 100-Watt traveling wave tube amplifier; waveform controller oscillator; instantaneous frequency measurement receiver; radar receiver/transmitter; velocity deception amplifier; waveform generator; pod-mounted polarization modulator antenna; polarization modulator controller; subscale target polarization modulator antenna; and RF amplifier.
Navy experts are working to shrink AN/ULQ-21 modules to enable them to fit into relatively small target vehicles like the Navy BQM-74 Chukar aerial target drone and the MQM-107 Streaker reusable turbojet-powered target-towing drone, and other small aerial targets.
On this contract US Technologies will do the work in Fair Lawn, N.J., and should be finished by August 2019. For more information contact US Technologies online at www.ustechnologies.com or the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division-China Lake at www.navair.navy.mil/nawcwd.
John Keller | Editor
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.
