Future British Warships To Likely Feature Australian Radars

Australia's defense ministry announced Friday that the future British warships will likely feature home-made radars developed by local firm CEA Technologies.

According to the announcement made during the Under Secretary of State for Defence Procurement of UK, Harriett Baldwin, visit to Adelaide today, the British Government will conduct a capability study to fit CEA Technologies’ ‘CEAFAR’ radar to British ships and it will begin early next year.

The CEAFAR Active Phased Array Radar provides a multi function Digital Beam Forming (DBF) radar capability able to perform 3D volume search, surface search, fire control support, target classification in demanding, cluttered and jamming environments.

The decision came after the Australia-UK Defence Industry Dialogue which took place in the United Kingdom last week.

Australia's Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne said the announcement was an important follow up to last week’s dialogue and showed the continuing strengthening of defence industry ties between the two countries. “Australia and the United Kingdom have much that can be gained from increasing cooperation around defence industry,” Pyne said.

“Canberra’s CEA Technologies designs and manufactures advanced phased array radars for our Navy’s eight Anzac Class Frigates as part of their Anti-Ship Missile Defence Upgrade Program and the recently announced Long Range Air Search Radar replacement,” he said.

The minister further noted that Australia’s future frigates will have a CEA radar as one of its core capabilities.

The meeting also discussed Australia’s soon to be released Defence Export Strategy; as well as the UK’s recently released National Shipbuilding Strategy.