Eyes of the surface fleet

The U.S. Navy program-of-record SPY-6 radar is headed for more than 50 ships across seven ship classes.

It will come from Raytheon Technologies' 1.7 million square foot campus in Andover, Massachusetts. There, robots are working alongside engineers and operators to build incredibly powerful radars for U.S. and allied forces.

“Radars are our bread and butter,” said Bill Tice, director of modernization and innovation at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a business of Raytheon Technologies. “The whole thing is about [making radars] efficiently and affordably.”

At the far end of the Andover facility’s quarter-mile-long main corridor, construction crews have put the finishing touches on a 30,000-square-foot addition. That's the home of low-rate initial production for one of the largest radars Raytheon Technologies has ever built: the U.S. Navy’s AN/SPY-6 integrated air and missile defense radar.

“We strategically sized for future growth, so we’re ready for even bigger and more powerful [radars],” said Sarah Jennette, program manager for the project.

Before 12 million pounds of concrete laid the groundwork for the $72 million space, the entire facility was completely scoped out, designed and simulated in virtual reality in the Raytheon Technologies Immersive Design Center. Futuristic automation is at the heart of the new construction, from autonomous material movement in unmanned vehicles to an industry-first, dual-robotic system — think multiple robots working together to build a radar.

The sheer magnitude of the space is impressive. Natural light floods the room, reaching the ceilings, which are 60 feet high. The largest near-field range doors stand 38 feet high; picture the gate to Jurassic Park, if it was made of solid steel.

In the building, purple and blue lights peak out from the bottom of rolling bots. These small, autonomous robot vehicles quietly cross the room, carrying materials to the robots that build.

“We built it with the future in mind…our new space is the cornerstone of a fully integrated campus that goes from atoms all the way up to [radar] arrays,” said Jennette.

POWERING UP

The facility can easily handle radar programs of various sizes and power requirements. But it’s also ready for new development programs that have completely different – and even greater – power specifications, thanks to a dedicated 2.5 megawatt substation. That's enough power for nearly 1,700 homes.

One of the radar development facility’s two ranges, used to test radar arrays, is one of the largest in the defense industry – measuring 50 feet wide, more than 80 feet long and more than 50 feet high. It is covered by 72,000 pyramidal cones, which reflect sound and radar frequency energy.

The world is full of radio frequency, or RF, signals that span spectrum. There's an anechoic chamber inside a near-field range that can block RF out, allowing engineers to accurately measure radars in a quiet, signal-free environment. Since the anechoic chamber is essentially a metal box, it also keeps signals radiated from the radar inside. The RF absorber on the chamber walls, blue non-reflective foam, is there to absorb those signals so they do not bounce around the room and effect the measurement.

The radar development facility in Massachusetts represents the next step in a Raytheon Technologies road map for the future. The company has invested more than $500 million over the past seven years on advanced automation technology for SPY-6. Additional construction, including expanded production areas dedicated to transmit/receive and radio frequency heads – key radar components – will be completed this year.