UK MoD Orders Additional Saab Giraffe AMB Radars, Upgrades

Saab has received orders from the UK Ministry of Defence for additional Giraffe AMB radars plus upgrades of the existing system worth SEK 610 million (US$73.5 million).

Deliveries will start during the second half of 2015 and continue until 2018, a Saab release said today.

The Giraffe AMB radar provides a full 360° update of the air situation out to 120 km every second. It can operate in mountains, complex coastal regions and wind farm areas.

The upgrade will take the UK’s existing systems to the same production-build standard as the new Giraffe AMB, enhancing the primary radar’s performance and capacity. This, in turn, will enable the addition of a capability to spot small UAVs and the capacity to screen out difficult radar ‘clutter’, such as birds.

“We are delighted to have agreed this significant expansion and upgrade of the Giraffe AMB fleet with the UK MoD. We are looking forward to supporting both potential mission deployments and further system evolutions based on our spiral development plan for Giraffe,” says Micael Johansson, head of Saab business area Electronic Defence Systems.

The multi-mission Giraffe AMB surveillance radar system was first acquired by the United Kingdom in 2008 as part of the Land Environment Air Picture Provision (LEAPP) programme. It has made a vital contribution to force protection through the detection and prediction of impact of incoming rockets, artillery shells and mortars.

The Giraffe AMB is part of Saab’s Giraffe product family that includes high-performance air and sea surveillance and target indication radars, covering very short to long ranges. The Giraffe also has essential command and control for ground based air defence and sense-and-warn applications.