SAAB has upgraded its Sea Giraffe naval radar by introducing a Hyper-Sonic Detection Mode (HDM), a capability for detecting and tracking targets travelling at hypersonic speeds.

Due to the radar horizon, naval vessels face limited time to act against low flying missiles travelling at great speed. With the emergence of threats in the high supersonic and even hypersonic speed ranges, this threat is getting even worse.

SAAB’s HDM will give the ship more time to act against any target due to quick track formation time. The HDM capability builds on SAAB’s next generation track while scan technology, which enables track start within a fraction of a second for any number of targets, including stealthy ones, in all conditions.

“The hypersonic threat is credible and increasing. Navies around the world are asking for a capability to retain their dominant battle space awareness and to give them crucial time to act. We are able to meet these requirements by using our existing technology, adapting it for the hypersonic challenge”, says Anders Carp, head of SAAB’s business area Surveillance.

The HDM is optimised for the Sea Giraffe 4A Fixed Face, which is a fixed array configuration that belongs to SAAB’s multi-functional family of S-band AESA radar systems.