The AN/APY-10 is an American multifunction

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

developed for the U.S. Navy's

Boeing P-8 Poseidon The Boeing P-8 Poseidon is an American maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft developed and produced by Boeing Defense, Space & Security. It was developed for the United States Navy as a derivative of the civilian Boeing 737 Next Generati ...

maritime patrol Maritime patrol or maritime reconnaissance is the task of monitoring areas of water. Generally conducted by military and law enforcement agencies, maritime patrol is usually aimed at identifying human activities. Maritime patrol refers to active ...

and

surveillance aircraft Surveillance aircraft are aircraft used for surveillance. They are primarily operated by military forces and government agencies in roles including intelligence gathering, maritime patrol, battlefield and airspace surveillance, observation (e. ...

. AN/APY-10 is the latest descendant of a radar family originally developed by

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

, and now

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

after it acquired the radar business of TI, for

Lockheed P-3 Orion The Lockheed P-3 Orion is a four-engined, turboprop Anti-submarine warfare, anti-submarine and maritime patrol aircraft, maritime surveillance aircraft developed for the United States Navy and introduced in the 1960s. It is based on the Lockheed ...

, the predecessor of P-8. The AN/APY-10 mechanically scanned radar is a development of Raytheon's AN/APS-149 radar. Compared to the AN/APS-137, it is smaller in size, lighter, and uses less power. The radar is optimized for

maritime Maritime may refer to: Geography * Maritime Alps, a mountain range in the southwestern part of the Alps * Maritime Region, a region in Togo * Maritime Southeast Asia * The Maritimes, the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Princ ...

littoral The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely i ...

and overland

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

. The AN/APY-10 is able to provide

high resolution Image resolution is the level of detail of an image. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies ...

radar images in both overland and water modes. Available modes include color weather,

synthetic aperture radar Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or 3D reconstruction, three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target regi ...

(SAR),

inverse synthetic aperture radar Inverse synthetic-aperture radar (ISAR) is a radar technique using radar imaging to generate a two-dimensional high resolution image of a target. It is analogous to conventional SAR, except that ISAR technology uses the movement of the target rat ...

(ISAR),

periscope A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position. In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...

detection, and

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...

. ISAR mode is said to be capable of both detecting, imaging and classifying surface targets at long range using a variety of resolutions.

AN/APS-80

The AN/APS-80 is the first member of the radar family the AN/APY-10 directly descends from, and this first member of the family was installed on P-3A/B. AN/APS-80 is an analog radar with a peak power of 143 kW. The original AN/APS-80 produced a single 2.6 x 3.4° beam, but later version, AN/APS-80A produces two beams: a 3.6° pencil beam and an 18° fan beam. A unique feature pioneered by AN/APS-80 is that it adopts two antennas to provide 360° coverage, with one antenna in the nose, the other in the tail, under the magnetic anomaly detector (MAD). The size of the antenna is for AN/APS-80, 42 x 24 inches for AN/APS-80A, and the gain is 34 dB for AN/APS-80 and 35 dB for AN/APS-80A. Each antenna can cover a 210° sector, and the scan rate for AN/APS-80 is either 6 or 12 revolution per minute (rpm), covering the scan sector of 36 or 72 degrees per second. For AN/APS-80A, the scan rate is 6 rpm at 45 degrees per second or 48 scans per minute.

AN/APS-88

AN/APS-88 is a light weight derivative of earlier AN/APS-80 with more compact size for smaller aircraft such as the Grumman SHU-16B Albatross and

Grumman S-2 Tracker The Grumman S-2 Tracker (S2F prior to 1962) is the first purpose-built, single airframe anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft to enter service with the United States Navy. Designed and initially built by Grumman, the Tracker was of conventional ...

. The peak power is 45 kW and like AN/APS-80, AN/APS-88 is also an X-band radar.

AN/APS-115

AN/APS-115 is a development of AN/APS-80A, and it is the first attempt of digitization by providing digital input into the digital combat system installed on the P-3. Other improvement over the original AN/APS-80 included the integration of two separate AN/APS-80A radar into a single unit via a single planar position indicator (PPI) display. The most important improvement is that AN/APS-115 is an automatic version of earlier AN/APS-80/80A, but some users felt that in the hands of an experienced operator, the manual analog AN/APS-80/80A has a better chance to detect small targets such as submarine periscope in sea clutter. AN/APS-115 utilizes

cavity magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and subsequently in microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators. A cavity magnetron generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons wit ...

AN/APS-116

X-band AN/APS-116 is the upgrade AN/APS-88 using technologies and experience gained in the success of AN/APS-115. The biggest difference between AN/APS-115 and AN/APS-116 is that while the former has two antennas like AN/APS-80, the latter only has a single antenna in the nose of the platform like AN/APS-88 it replaced. AN/APS-115 is able to achieve a resolution of 1.5 ft and the typical range against a submarine periscope is 15.5 nautical miles (nm).

AN/APS-124

Knowledge gained in the development of AN/APS-115/116 is used in the development of X-band AN/APS-124, the first model in the radar family developed for ASW helicopters. Due to the adoption of the

traveling wave tube A traveling-wave tube (TWT, pronounced "twit") or traveling-wave tube amplifier (TWTA, pronounced "tweeta") is a specialized vacuum tube that is used in electronics to amplify radio frequency (RF) signals in the microwave range. It was invented ...

(TWT), the peak power is significantly increased to 350 kW. Due to the size and weight constraint, the parabolic antenna of radars for fixed aircraft is replaced by a slotted planar array antenna for AN/APS-124, and scan rate is 6 or 12 rpm, with 120 rpm for weather. The array of AN/APS-124 produces a 1.2 x 20 degrees beam, and the typical range against a target is in comparison to of AN/APS-115/116. AN/APS-124 is installed on

Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk The Sikorsky SH-60/MH-60 Seahawk (or Sea Hawk) is a twin turboshaft engine, multi-mission United States Navy helicopter based on the United States Army UH-60 Black Hawk and a member of the Sikorsky S-70 family. The most significant modificati ...

AN/APS-127

AN/APS-127 is a derivative of AN/APS-124 adopted for light fixed wings aircraft. AN/APS-115/116 was too heavy and bulky for light aircraft, and AN/APS-124 for helicopters was an ideal candidate for adoption for light fixed winged aircraft, and the result is the X-band AN/APS-127, which equipped Danish

Gulfstream III The Gulfstream III, a business jet produced by Gulfstream Aerospace, is an improved development of the Grumman Gulfstream II. The U.S. military uses versions of the Gulfstream III as the C-20A/B/C/D/E aircraft, though later C-20 F/G/H/J are Gu ...

and

USCG The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, mi ...

HU-25.

AN/APS-134

Knowledge gained from the success of AN/APS-124 and AN/APS-127 was used to upgrade AN/APS-115 and AN/APS-116, and the result is the X-band AN/APS-134, which has a

track while scan Track-while-scan (TWS) is a mode of radar operation in which the radar allocates part of its power to tracking a target or targets (up to forty with modern radar) while part of its power is allocated to scanning. It is similar to but functions diff ...

(TWS) mode, and up to 32 surface targets can be simultaneously tracked. Developed as an "international successor" to AN/APS-115/116, AN/APS-134 utilizes TWT and it is integrated with on board

electronic warfare support measures In military telecommunications, electronic support (ES) or electronic support measures (ESM) gather intelligence through passive "listening" to electromagnetic radiations of military interest. They are an aspect of electronic warfare involving ...

(ESM).

AN/APS-137

A further development of AN/APS-115/116/124/127/134 is the X-band AN/APS-137, incorporating

(SAR),

(ISAR) and Ground

moving target indication Moving target indication (MTI) is a mode of operation of a radar to discriminate a target against the clutter. It describes a variety of techniques used for finding moving objects, like an aircraft, and filter out unmoving ones, like hills or tree ...

(GMTI) modes. The resolution in SAR & ISAR modes is . A helicopter version of AN/APS-137 was also developed, but it lost out to Telephonics AN/APS-143.

AN/APS-148

AN/APS-148 Sea Vue (SeaVue) radar is a X-band radar based on the knowledge of AN/APS-137, developed by Raytheon for light fixed winged aircraft. SeaVue is a modular design that is upgradable, with only three

line-replaceable unit A line-replaceable unit (LRU), lower line-replaceable unit (LLRU), line-replaceable component (LRC), or line-replaceable item (LRI) is a modular component of an airplane, ship or spacecraft (or any other manufactured device) that is designed to b ...

AN/APS-149

20200311 P-3C Orion Tail 161588 Kadena AB-5

AN/APS-149 Littoral Surveillance Radar System (LSRS) is the first model in the radar family that adopts

active electronically scanned array An active electronically scanned array (AESA) is a type of phased array antenna, which is a computer-controlled antenna array in which the beam of radio waves can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving the a ...

(AESA) radar, and it is developed for littoral and overland surveillance radar, initially fielded aboard the service's P-3C Block Modification Update Program (BMUP) maritime patrol and surveillance aircraft. The wide-aperture radar is mounted in a ventral pod attached to the belly of the host aircraft by at least three attachment points.

AN/APS-506

AN/APS-506 is the Canadian derivative of AN/APS-116 with the addition of Spotlight SAR mode. Two more additional real-time imaging modes are also incorporated, including ISAR and strip map modes.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Aircraft radars Synthetic aperture radar Military electronics of the United States