Northrop Grumman's AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) system has been delivered to Surface Combat Systems Center (SCSC) Wallops Island in Eastern Virginia for the government to begin its first and second phases of Developmental Test (DT).

The final phase of DT and the Operational Assessment for G/ATOR will be conducted in Yuma, Ariz.

Currently under development for the U.S. Marine Corps, G/ATOR is the first ground-based, multirole radar to be developed for the U.S. Department of Defense.

At Northrop Grumman's Baltimore facility, the G/ATOR system has already completed part one of the System Performance Qualification Testing in addition to rigorous performance verification testing at the system and subsystem levels. G/ATOR accumulated a significant number of hours of live aircraft testing during that time.

This live target testing provided an added measure of confidence that G/ATOR performance is consistent with performance requirements against a wide array of target types and sizes, speeds, ranges and trajectories.

"Throughout these tests, G/ATOR has demonstrated an unprecedented ability to provide enhanced information and surveillance data to the warfighter," said Steve McCoy, vice president for tactical sensor solutions at Northrop Grumman.

"With G/ATOR's modular, scalable architecture, we can get that capability into the field sooner and at lower cost to the Department of Defense."

With its ability to intelligently and adaptively allocate its myriad of sensor capabilities, G/ATOR is designed to detect and track a wide variety of threats, including manned aircraft, cruise missiles and unmanned autonomous systems.

G/ATOR is built with an open, scalable architecture to enable digital interoperability and allow new capabilities to be added through software-only updates.