Cassidian TRS-4D Naval Radar Successfully Tested

Cassidian’s TRS-4D naval radar for the German Navy F125 class frigates has been successfully demonstrated its reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities.

The tests were conducted over several weeks. According to Shephard, the radar demonstrated ‘extraordinarily’ high precision, particularly when detecting small targets such as UAVs, guided missiles and periscopes.

The first TRS-4D will be integrated into the German Navy’s Baden-Württemberg lead ship. Four F125 frigates of the Baden-Württemberg class will replace the German Navy’s F122 Bremen class ships from 2016.

Cassidian has designed the radar to apply Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology to small and medium-sized ships for the first time. It uses multiple independent emitters in its antenna, which enables it to be more accurate and faster than conventional radars, and allows it to tackle a wider range of targets, including protecting against asymmetric attacks.

For the F125 frigates, the system will be deployed in a version with four fixed arrays. Using electronically controlled beams, these planar arrays are able to track individual targets much more accurately than mechanically rotating antennas, whose update rate depends on their rotational speed.

The system architecture is designed so that the radar systems’ capabilities can easily be extended through software updates.