Laser Designators

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U.S. Army Awards Northrop Grumman Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinders Delivery Order Valued at $142.7 Million



10:21 GMT, March 24, 2010 APOPKA, Fla. | Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has received a delivery order award from the U.S. Army valued at $142.7 million to provide over 500 Lightweight Laser Designator Rangefinders (LLDR) under a five-year indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract.

Northrop Grumman's LLDR accurately targets enemy positions during the day, at night and in nearly all battlefield conditions including haze, smoke, fog and rain. It provides a unique capability to forward observers and air controllers, and enables commanders to see the enemy and decide how to act with confidence. Using an eye-safe laser wavelength, the system recognizes targets, finds the range to a target, and fixes target locations for laser-guided, GPS-guided, and conventional munitions. This lightweight, interoperable system uniquely provides range finding and targeting information to other digital battlefield systems.

Northrop Grumman's Laser Systems business unit has delivered and fielded more than 1,300 LLDR systems to U.S. military forces supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The LLDR system has proven itself to be of tremendous benefit to our nation's warfighters," said Gordon Stewart, Northrop Grumman's Laser Systems vice president and general manager. "At Northrop Grumman, we recognize and appreciate the need to consistently deliver high quality solutions to our customers that meet their specified mission requirements, while remaining on cost and on schedule. The LLDR is but one example of the company's commitment to our customers."

This marks the second delivery order award to Northrop Grumman under an ID/IQ contract from the Army that has a not-to-exceed value of $599 million. The first delivery order award was issued in Oct. 2009 and was valued at $72.7 million.

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New Miniature Lasers Improve Air/Ground Coordination, Response


Serpent M is a new, portable target designation system that enables the JTAC or leader at a tactical unit to mark and designate targets on dismounted operations. Photo: Elbit Systems

Elbit Systems is demonstrating several new systems providing ground forces with better, safer air support. A new device already deployed in combat units is a lightweight, hand-held target designator and illuminator called Rattler. This handgun like piece employs miniaturized Diode-Pumped Laser (DPL) and simple but efficient aiming device enabling troops to mark


Rattler is a hand-held, miniature hand-gun like laser marker/target designator capable of designating targets or mark it for other platform for attack, at a range of several kilometers. Photo: Tamir Eshel, Defense-Update

targets several kilometers away, enabling pilots to quickly identify the target and pursue with the attack. The Rattler can also be used to designate such targets for precision, laser guided attack.

The officer responsible for coordinating those air attacks (Joint Tactical Air Controller – JTAC) commonly use a large and heavy laser target designation system to mark the target for precision attack. The JTAC provides a critical element in ensuring the attack hits only the designated target and maintain friendly units or non combatant bystanders unharmed. Elbit Systems is now introducing a new, portable target designation system, enabling the JTAC to dismount and deploy to forward position with minimal weight load, using the Serpent-M, (formerly known JTAC-LTD). This ultra-light, battery-powered laser target designator and marker is small enough to be carried by foot-mobile war fighters, enabling soldiers to designate targets for laser-guided bombs, missiles and other munitions. The Serpent-M incorporates the Rattler designator along with a thermal imager and daylight optics.

To further reduce the risk of fratricide, warfighters are beginning to employ advanced thermal beacons to mark their position to friendly thermal imaging systems. Elbit is introducing two such systems, the MK V designed for dismounted applications and the MK II strobe system designed for dismounted or mobile applications. The spectral characteristics of the beacons covers NIR, MWIR and LWIR. In practical terms the MK V beacon can be used as an invisible flashlight, visible only through thermal imagers widely used in Afghanistan, as they offer good performance in dark starless nights and effective detection of human or vehicular targets at extended range. Typical applications of the beacon passage of lines; near-far signaling; and guidance of vehicles and aircraft. The MK-V is a reliable hand optical IFF providing positive force identification.

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Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Where's True North?

Posted by Bill Sweetman at 10/14/2011 5:55 AM CDT

If you have spent much time around the close air support and "joint fires" community in the last few years, you know that there's been one problem that joint tactical air controllers (JTACs) have wanted solved. It's a very basic one.

With GPS, the JTAC knows exactly where he or she is. Laser rangefinding, built into the basic JTAC tool -- night-vision or infrared binoculars, usually tripod-mounted -- gives an exact distance to the target. But one of the vital elements in geolocation falls short. Most systems rely on a digital magnetic compass for azimuth, and that is subject to normal changes in the local magnetic field.

The result is uncertainty about the target's position that increases with range, and that may prevent a JTAC from authorizing fire from GPS-guided weapons if friendlies or noncombatants are close.

Various solutions have been tried. Rockwell Collins offers a system with a second GPS receiver, on a cable. By using differential GPS, it can determine the bearing between the two receivers and calibrate the compass. But it requires someone to emplace the second receiver, which may be slow or hazardous.

Vectronix, a Switzerland-based subsidiary of Sagem, unveiled a new solution to the problem at this week's Association of the US Army show. The Sterna family of systems comprises a north-finding module mounted on a tripod, with a top mount for any of the company's rangefinder systems. When the operator starts the system up, it goes through a two-minute process in which it rotates left, right and then back to its start position. Within two minutes it has locked on to true north. Specified accuracy is +/- 5mil but the company says it routinely achieves close to +/- 1 mil.


Sterna and display showing +/- 1mil accuracy

Vectronix director, orientation systems, Sabina Danczul explains how it works. Inside the unit is a hemispheric resonator gyro, basically the same Sagem model that is used on the A2SM Hammer guided bomb, which compares readings each time it turns. But, I said, how does that help if the system doesn't change position? It does, Danczul points out: "The system accounts for the rotation of the earth." A few algorithms later, it calibrates the DMC.

Very neat. Sterna was getting some good high-level attention at AUSA.