Kelvin Hughes SharpEye Radar for Pakistan’s Second Khalid-class Submarine Upgrade

UK based Kelvin Hughes has won a contract to supply its SharpEye Doppler radar system to the second of the Pakistan Navy’s Agosta 90B-class (also known as the Khalid-class attack submarine) upgrade program.

Working with Turkish defence contractor STM, the main contractor for the refurbishment programme, Kelvin Hughes will supply the SharpEye system to the first submarine in 2018 and the second in 2019.

The upgrades are being performed at the Karachi Pakistan Naval Shipyard however specific details concerning each submarine in the program have not been disclosed.

Following the announcement in February 2017 that Kelvin Hughes will be supplying the SharpEye Doppler submarine radar system to the mid-life upgrade program for the first of Pakistan Navy’s Agosta 90B-class submarine, the order for the next submarine in this program has been placed.

The SharpEye I-Band (X-Band) radar transceiver for submarines is based on a downmast transceiver housed in an enclosure located within the pressure hull and provides submarines both in-service as a retrofit and new classes a high performance solid state radar with similar capabilities to SharpEye radars installed on naval surface ships.

This downmast submarine radar solution makes use of the existing bulkhead infrastructure in the pressure hull, removing the need to replace the antenna mast system by utilising the existing external antenna, rotational drive and waveguide connections. Kelvin Hughes also manufactures and supplies a pressure resistant 'AZL' submarine antenna.

Key benefits of the SharpEye radar solution for the Agosta 90B-class mid-life upgrade program is the extremely high reliability and low through life costs.