World Market for Early Warning Radar Could Reach $30 Billion.

Several multi-national aerospace industry teams will be vying, during the next 10 to 20 years, for a piece of what could be a $30 billion market for so-called airborne early-warning and control (AEW&G) systems.

Among the most popular AEW&C systems today is the U.S. Air Force AWACS (airborne warning and control system), an air surveillance radar aircraft. The E-3 Sentry AWACS, built on a Boeing 707 jet, also serves in other roles, such as electronic-signal monitoring, command and control, as well as air-traffic control. During military operations, AWACS becomes a communications node that links ground commanders, air forces and warships. It plays an air-defense role in the detection of cruise missile attacks.

There are about 220 AEW&C platforms worldwide today, 76 of which are AWACS. But Boeing no longer makes the 707 jet. The last AWACS units to roll off the assembly line, bought by Japan, were made on 767 jets. The AWACS system will stay around for several more decades, while undergoing upgrades, but no new production is expected. For most countries outside NATO, AWACS is too big and too expensive, each costing up to $500 million.

Boeing now believes that the future is in the business-jet sized AEW&C platform, which can do many of the AWACS functions, but is less costly, said Patrick R. Gill, vice president of Boeing's 737 AEW&C program.

According to Gill, there will be a market for about 50 AEW&C platforms during the next decade or two, worth between $15 billion and $30 billion. The demand for new aircraft will grow because the world's AEW&C airframes are aging, Gill said. The average age is about 17 years. "So there is a substantial market for upgrades," he said.

Boeing, together with Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Thales and Quantas Airlines, won a contract to build four 737700 radar planes for Australia, under a program called Wedgetail. Northrop Grumman makes the radar, called the multi-role electronically scanned array (Mesa). BAE Systems is responsible for the electronic warfare systems.

In contrast to the 30-foot diameter rotating radar-dome antenna found in AWACS, the Wedgetail system has a "top hat" 25-by-30-foot antenna. The Mesa has a steerable electronic beam, which helps achieve uniform coverage out to 190 nautical miles, said Gill. Combined with the primary radar is an integrated identification friend-or-foe system.

The top-hat antenna is attached to the airframe with 22 bolts, said William R. Adams, vice president of airborne surveillance systems at Northrop Grumman.

In the international market, the Wedgerail-type system is "the one to beat," said Kernan Chaisson, industry analyst at Forecast International DMS, a business intelligence firm. He predicted that, during the next decade, there could be a market for 20 Mesa aircraft. That could expand, he said, if NATO decided to buy the system as a replacement for AWACS.

The Australian award is helping the Boeing team solidify its position in the marketplace, said Chaisson. The Turkish government currently is negotiating with Boeing for the purchase of up to four Wedgetail-type systems. The cost, up to $1.5 billion, could be a big hurdle for Turkey, which is undergoing an economic recession. If the Boeing bid turns our to be unacceptable, the second in line to negotiate is an AEW&C system based on an Airbus 310 jet. The Raytheon Co. is the prime contractor, and the radar is made by Israel's Elta Electronics.

In Turkey, "we still have hope to stay, said Norman W. Ray, president of Raytheon International Inc., in Brussels. "The Turks assure us that we are not out of the picture."

According to Forecast International, other potential buyers of AEW&C systems in the foreseeable future are Israel, Italy, South Korea and Spain.

For these countries, said Chaisson, "AWACS is out of the question." The cost and maintenance demands make it prohibitive, he said. U.S. export control restrictions eliminated several potential buyers, even if they could afford it. "Some countries found out that AWACS would suck up all their technicians. Small forces don't have the manpower to support it." The Wedgetail platform, being a smaller jet, makes it easier to maintain, he added. Its price rag is estimated at about $150 million to $190 million.

In the Pacific Rim, said Chaisson, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand could become buyers in the distant future.

The United States is considering a mix of sensor platforms to augment and eventually replace the AWACS. That could mean sales of up to 20 Mesa systems, although "this requirement is far from firm," said Chaisson.

Advances in antenna technology made the top-hat concept possible, simplifying the mechanical engineering and eliminating the need for rotary joints, constant sources of trouble with rotating antennas, he said. Electronically-scanned arrays make it easier to multi-task a radar, he said.

"We can dedicate radar energy to specific targets and track them simultaneously. We don't have to wait for the mechanically scanned array to go around," Gill said. There was "some concern at Boeing," he said, about installing a 10,000-pound radar on a small aircraft like the 737. "There were a lot of disbelievers."

To build the Wedgerail system, Boeing will take the 737-700 business jet, remove the winglers to maximize the field of view from the radar and mount the radar on the aft section of the aircraft, on the dorsal fin. The radar is a solid-state transmit/receive modular system. The entire end of the aircraft is dedicated to the radar. The crew rest areas are customizable. The forward section is occupied by mission equipment, consoles and displays. There is room for up to 10 consoles.

Boeing builds 24 737-700s per month at its Seattle factory. About 2,600 are in service worldwide.

"Most countries don't have the infrastructure to accept an AEW&C system," said Gill. In Australia, Boeing is building the support, training and maintenance facilities. The first Wedgetail aircraft is scheduled to fly by 2003.

"For Australia, we have 87 different antennas on the aircraft, to satisfy requirements for secure wideband communications," said Gill. "The aircraft looks like a porcupine."

The Mesa radar has been in development since the early 1990s. There are nearly 300 modules per radar, depending on the configuration. It has three separate antennas: the left-side array, the right-side array and the top hat.

An unspecified number of countries, said Gill, have expressed interest in the 737 AEW&C system as a possible ballistic-missile defense platform, said Gill. That capability, however, is subject to U.S. export controls." If the U.S. government allowed it, Boeing could offer ballistic-missile defense technologies for the Mesa system, he said.

The Wedgetail system has been approved for export to Australia, Turkey, South Korea and Italy. Gill said he believes the Mesa system will be a strong contender in South Korea. "We have submitted a proposal for four aircraft," he said.

South Korean officials will be spending a month later this year visiting the Boeing facilities in Seattle and Northrop Grumman's Baltimore offices, said Adams. "We are answering questions fiercely," he said.

Both companies are hoping for a decision in 2002.

Italy's plans remain open-ended. The Wedgetail team is interested in competing in Italy, but no solicitation is expected for at least two or more years.

Other possible competitors for AEW&C business in South Korea and Italy include: the Raytheon-led team that competed in Turkey, the E-2C Hawkeye aircraft, made by Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems Sector, in Bethpage, N.Y (see related story) and a team of Sweden's Ericsson Microwave and Brazil's Embraer.

The Swedish AEW&C system is called Erieye, a phased-array pulse-Doppler radar, mounted on an Embraer EMB-145 jet. The radar beam is electronically scanned in 360 degrees. Erieye is in production for the Swedish Air Force. Four systems, out of six ordered, are in operation, with the Saab 340 as a platform. It also was selected as the airborne surveillance system in the Brazilian SiVAM program, to monitor the Amazon jungle. Five systems were ordered, with the EMB-145 as a platform.

The Greek government is buying four Erieye-Embraer systems for the Hellenic Air Force. Ericsson spokeswoman Agneta Lundin Carlsson declined to comment about any future competitions.

"We are marketing our Erieye system in different countries, but for respect to customers, we don't discuss special cases," she said. Embraer won a contract in Mexico recently to supply airborne AEW&C systems. "We are in final negotiation with Embraer for the end customer, Mexico," Carlsson said.

During the recent Paris Air Show, Flight International Daily News reported that Russia's Beriev and Israeli Aircraft Industries agreed to co-produce three AEW&C aircraft, called A-50EhI, for the Indian Air Force. Beriev will provide the radar and communications gear, to be installed on three Il-76TD transport aircraft. IAI will be responsible for the installation of the Elta radar and phased-array antennas. Deliveries are scheduled for 2005.

The A-50EhI is a modified version of the A-501, which had been sold to China in 1997. The sale was cancelled in 2000, after the U.S. government intervened to prevent the transfer of Israel's radar technology to China.

In the United States, meanwhile, the Air Force is seeking the industry's ideas on the possibility of combining platforms that currently perform aerial surveillance (AWACS, Joint STARS, Rivet Joint) into a single multi-mission command and control aircraft.

"We have a team looking at it," said Adams, vice president of Northrop Grumman. He predicted, however, that the Air Force will end up with a "constellation" of systems, rather than a single platform. That constellation will include unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) equipped with advanced sensors.

Philip A. Teel, vice president of Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems Sector, which makes the E-2C Hawkeye, offered a similar forecast. The only way for the Air Force to consolidate manned aircraft functions is by using "adjunct UAVs," he said. "We don't get there with one platform. It would be one manned platform and unmanned adjuncts that provide sensor capability at much reduced cost."

There are problems associated with trying to combine radar capabilities, he said. Signals interfere with one another, for example. "You just can't get all the antennas on a single platform. The answer is to build a distributed architecture," said Teel.

Chaisson, from Forecast International, agreed that the "technological challenges are significant, to get all that into one airplane."

The engineering of doing both air-to-air and air-to-ground surveillance with a single antenna is "just about impossible," he said. "Trying to combine too much in one antenna causes frequency problems, because you need to operate at different frequencies for air-to-air and air-to-ground." Chaisson pointed our that the Joint Strike Fighter program originally had attempted to develop a single multi-function array for both the radar and the electronic-surveillance functions. "They found our they couldn't do it."

The Pentagon's Defense Science Board advisory panel recommended in an April 2001 report that the Air Force consider funding X-band air-to-air radar technology for the Global Hawk UAV. That capability could be used to supplement AWACS, the panel said.

Nonetheless, UAVs would have limited value as AEW&C platforms, said Chaisson. "I don't envision UAVs as a really big mover in that role. "The kind of processing, radar, command and control [that is needed in AEW&C will be hard to do from a UAV," he said. The size is a problem. The consoles in most AEW&C systems are on the airplane, with the operators. With a UAV, the data is sent to a ground station. That could create data-link problems, said Chaisson. "I don't envision UAVs taking over for AWACS any time soon.