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US Army deploys first JLENS surveillance

radar aerostat for three-year exercise
Date Posted: 29-Dec-2014
Author: Geoff Fein, Washington, DC
Publication: Jane's International Defence Review
Key Points

VHF surveillance radar can detect objects at 340 miles

JLENS' X-band fire control radar to be deployed in early 2015

The US Army has begun testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Maryland, the first of two
aerostats designed to protect the Washington, DC, area from cruise missiles and unmanned
aircraft attacks.

The US Army deployed the first JLENS aerostat on 27 December. The aerostat will now undergo
radar calibration testing. (Raytheon)
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The Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) designed
by Raytheon will hover approximately 10,000 ft above APG. The first system, or orbit, is equipped
with low-band VHF radar, giving the army a 340-mile (547 km), 360-degree view, well beyond the
US capital region, Doug Burgess, JLENS programme director for Raytheon, told IHS Jane's .
The aerostats are built by TCOM.

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The VHF radar has a lot of power and a long wavelength so operators are able to detect the speed
and direction of an object across a wide area. However, those objects appear as blobs on an
operator's display, Burgess said.
"You are getting an excellent situational awareness picture of what is going on around you from
the surface up to 100,000 ft," he said. "The radar gives you good accuracy ... but it is not
sufficiently accurate to aim a weapon. It is really for situational awareness."

The 243 ft-long aerostats are each tied to a 165 lb mooring station. Each aerostat has its own
power generation and data processing system housed in a shelter. (TCOM)
1411198
The army deployed the surveillance radar JLENS on 27 December. The aerostat will undergo a
series of tests including calibration of the radar and making sure the data is flowing properly.
"We will have civil air patrol flights [flying] standard patterns to check radar accuracy and calibrate
the radar," Burgess added. Those flights are expected to begin in December and run into January.

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The second aerostat which serves as the fire control system is equipped with an X-band radar, a
higher frequency, shorter wavelength capability. Burgess noted it designed to provide a sectored
view (about 100 degrees) of an area. "It can be mechanically steered in any direction you want."
"If you see something of interest with the VHF radar you can mechanically and electronically steer
in that direction and use the X-band radar to get additional information including much [more
accurate] track/position data and much [more accurate] velocity data," Burgess said.
The fire control aerostat is expected to be deployed in early 2015. Once the second JLENS
system is deployed, the army will begin a three-year testing phase.
Each individual aerostat also has its own identification friend or foe (IFF) capability. That is
important when operating in the northeast United States air traffic corridor, Burgess noted.

The first JLENS system, or orbit, is equipped with low-band VHF surveillance radar providing a
340-mile, 360-degree view. (Raytheon)
1484081
"The majority of [air] traffic is commercial or private airplanes each with transponders. JLENS is
getting that data in addition to raw data returns from VHF and X-band radars," he said.
The IFF data is fused with the long-range tracks collected by the VHF radar and assembled into a
report and transmitted via various data links to the North American Aerospace Defense Command
and the 263rd US Army Air and Missile Defense Command, which is responsible for defence of
the airspace over the National Capital Region.
Both the surveillance and fire control aerostats can correlate their own data and they can pass it
back and forth between the two systems, Burgess said.

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"The radars can ideally be operated in tandem, but can be operated separately because they both
have this correlation system on the ground that is giving you that common operating picture," he
said. "These are really two different systems. The only connection between them is a
data/communications connection."
Raytheon has successfully integrated JLENS' software architecture with the Eastern Air Defense
Sector (EADS) systems, Burgess added.
"Now it is a matter of live radar tracks being assembled and put in that message format and sent
out," Burgess said.
The 243 ft-long (74 m) aerostats are each tied to a 165 lb (74.8 kg) mooring station. Each aerostat
has its own power generation and data processing system housed in a shelter. Cables carrying
power, data, and the aerostats' controls run from the shelters through trenches to the mooring
station where they are carried up to the aerostats via tethers.
When the two JLENS orbits are finally deployed they will be approximately 4 km apart, Burgess
noted. "At Aberdeen Proving Ground the aerostats are actually on different peninsulas."
The aerostats require a minimum distance separation to avoid tangling the tethers, he added.

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