Raytheon Awarded Contract to Advance Software Defined Naval Radar

Raytheon, a business of RTX, announced in a press release that it has been awarded a contract by the Office of Naval Research to advance development of software for next generation naval radars. The project will focus on enabling radar modules to operate independently, allowing a single radar to perform multiple missions simultaneously.

The new software will treat each radar module as a software defined aperture. This design allows the radar to adapt quickly to changing operational requirements and to share crowded frequency bands with commercial systems such as 5G. The approach aims to deliver capability improvements through software updates instead of hardware redesign.

Raytheon's Advanced Technology team will lead the effort. Once development is complete, the company plans to conduct demonstrations to validate independent control of radar modules and capabilities including multi mission operation and spectrum sharing. Following successful testing, the technology is expected to transition into operational naval radar systems.