Northrop Develops New 30mm Airburst Round to Destroy Drones

The following piece first appeared on Warrior Maven, a Military Content Group member website.

Northrop Grumman has recently developed two new 30mm airburst rounds for use on its 30mm Canon range, including the Bushmaster 44.

The Tremor system consists of a master radar truck linked to a battery of six further trucks with the 30mm canon mounted on an Overhead Weapon Station with an Electro Optic Systems (EOS) Electro-optic infrared (EO/IR) system and EchoGuard radar. The master radar truck acquires multiple unmanned aerial vehicle (UAS) targets and passes them to one of the trucks, where the EchoGuard radar locks on and tracks the target before handing it over to the EO/IR system.

The canon is slaved onto the target and destroys it with one hit at up to 1.4 km range. EchoShield operates in the Ku band, with RadioLocation service at 15.7-16.6 GHz and RadioNavigation at 15.4-15.7 GHz, and is commercially exportable to many countries under US Export Administration Regulations (EAR) regulations.

Its features include:

• 130° azimuth x 90° elevation field of regard (fully customizable)
• 0.5° tracking accuracy in azimuth and elevation, with very low track splitting/ dropping
• Powerful UAV classification with low false alarms and near-zero false-negatives
• Cognitive search capabilities integrate onboard or offboard data
• Average tracking ranges for counter-UAS mission:
  • Group 1 (-20 to -10 dBsm): 2.7 to 4.8 km
  • Group 2 (-10 to -5 dBsm): 4.8 to 6.4 km
  • Group 3 (-5 to 5 dBsm): 6.4 to 11.4 km ECS-TCI

Claw Directional Inhibitor

The Claw Directional Inhibitor is a self-contained inhibitor system that combines the RF power electronics with a high-gain multi-band directional antenna system. The Claw Inhibitor comprises of dual mast-mount units covering the 433MHz, GNSS, 915MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz ISM frequency bands with RF output powers to the antennas of up to 83w.

With an aggregated RF output power to the antenna of up to 150w, the Claw system disrupts the control, navigation and telemetry used by UAS and can be customized for end-user requirements.

The Claw System comprises the following: Directional antenna enclosures; Two Software Defined Radio (SDR) directional inhibitor units; Either 2 AC, or 1 DC Power Supply Units; and Claw positioning head.

“The combination of TCI and ECS allows the combined entity to develop systems to command the spectrum to allow the passive location and destruction of every type of drone from the errant user thru the surveillance user to the weaponized drone. We can offer our customers a range of C-UAS systems from passive RF systems thru those with an EO/IR system and radar to allow long-range location and kinetic systems to destroy weaponized drones before they reach their target. We have already identified other acquisition targets to allow SPX to offer a complete C-UAS system from one source.” Jackson White, Northrop Grumman senior Engineer said. “The open architecture plug and play design of Claw enables customers to tailor make their requirements to suit the perceived threat level prior to deployment or in theatre. These requirements range from a number of kinetic defeat systems to radars and EW systems.”