Article Posted on : - Oct 26, 2010

U.S. Army UH-60A Blackhawk helicopters and AN/APR-39 Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) (inset).

ROLLING MEADOWS, ILLINOIS (BNS): The US Army has awarded $457 million worth contract to Northrop Grumman Corporation for providing US Army's Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM) with advanced AN/APR-39 radar warning receivers.

According to this five-year, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract, the company will deliver APR-39C(V)1 upgrade kits and APR-39A/B(V)2 systems as part of a $118 million initial order.

"The AN/APR-39 is specially designed to maximize survivability by improving aircrew situational awareness," Mark Kula, vice president of Radio Frequency Combat and Information Systems at Northrop Grumman's Land and Self Protection Systems Division, was quoted as saying in the company news release.

The AN/APR-39 series is a family of RWRs fitted to a variety of fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and naval vessels. Current configurations are APR-39A(V)2, and APR-39B(V)2. Both variants cover the frequency range from C to K band, and provide conventional radar warning.

The APR-39 provides continuous 360-degree coverage to automatically detect and identify threat types, bearing and lethality before alerting a cockpit crew to each threat with a graphical symbol on the cockpit multifunction display or video display.