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68Maritime Reporter & Engineering News By Edward Lundquist Naval radar experts met in San Diego to share their expertise and experiences with the operation and support of theSaab Sea Giraffe naval surveillance radar. The workshop enabled the participants to make contacts and develop working rela- tionships with other naval experts in- volved with the operation and support of the Swedish-made system, and create aclearer picture of the current state of theradar and its development. The Sea Giraffe search radar is been in- stalled on surface combatants, including frigates, corvettes, patrol boats, and the littoral combat ship, and is in service orselected for installation with 12 navies around the world. Capt. Bo Wallander, RSwN (Ret.), ex- plained the evolution of the Giraffe Land Radar and Sea Giraffe naval surveillance radar, and the models and various im- provement that have brought about the current Sea Giraffe AMB. Wallander then laid out the company?s vision re- garding the next generation of develop- ments. Wallander said navies have different requirements. For example, he pointed out Sweden has a unique?in-deed extreme littoral?operating envi- ronment with a long coastlines, thou-sands of islands, fog, rocks and civilian traffic on the Baltic Sea. But, he said, there are some very similar needs they all share. ?We all think about the sensor-to- shooter kill chain solution.? Although most observers will agree upon the importance and dependednceupon radar for naval and maritime opeer- ations, Wallander said radars and the re- lationship to other systems are oftenmisunderstood. ?Radar always gets blamed, even if there is another problem,? he said.The ability to have minimum reaction time between detection and engagement is critical, he said.While there is a desire for more capa-bilities, reliability and affordability are still very important customer considera- tions, Wallander said. ?There is a high degree of interest in Saab?s Radar ?road map? for future naval radar product development, such S Band,? said Capt. Jon Kaufmann, USN (Ret.), responsible for naval domain pro- grams for Saab North America. Kaufmann said the forum was intended to accomplish three goals. ?We want our customers to hear from us; and we want to hear from them. Just as important, wewant the representatives of the different navies here to talk to each other so they can compare notes and share lessonslearned.? ?There was interest in improving trou- bleshooting procedures, including thesoftware and hardware tools available to support the radar,? said Kaufman. ?We noted interest in having the ERES (Ex- tended Radar Evaluation System) laptop to record radar video for trouble shootingboth locally and remotely using distancesupport. The ERES is currently used by Saab technicians, but the users feel it would useful for them to have this capa- bility as well.? Ted Ackerstierna, head of naval domain marketing and sales for Saab Electronic Defense Systems in Gothenburg, Swe- den, said the importance of the workshop is to improve Saab?s awareness of the user experience and address any short- comings, which also helps Saab develop further improvements to the system. Members of the Saab technical staff were present and available to answer questions and respond to problems. The great advantage of the users' group, from Saab's point of view, is that it gave the Saab engineers a better idea of how the users viewed their radar. ?The users? practical knowledge and fa- miliarity with systems employed aboard actual naval vessels is of tremendous value to Saab, and to all of the navies that share this system,? Ackerstierna said. Ackerstierna said it?s important for Saab to learn what features are desired bycustomers so they can be evaluated for in- clusion in future versions of the Sea Gi- raffe family. Breakout sessions were held to discuss logistics, maintanence and operations.The participants conducted a produc-tive two-way dialog on Saab?s spectrum of logistics support options, including an-alyzing mean time between critical fail- ures, and full Integrated Logistics Support (ILS). ?Our Operational Availability group discussed spare part availability and par- NavyParticipants at workshop make multiple radar contactsSea Giraffe Radar Users Meet in SD (Photo by Edward Lundquist) Saab team at the Surface Navy Association West Coast Symposium at Pier 2, Naval Station SanDiego, with the Sea Giraffe radar demonstrator. MR#11 (66-73):MR Template 11/6/2012 3:25 PM Page 68
