The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City Division has received its tenth AN/AQS-20C minehunting sonar system from Raytheon, the company announced on Wednesday. The can start moving towards initial operating capacity after having completed developmental testing in Feb. 2019.
The AN/AQS-20C system is an advanced minehunting sonar system for the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) mine countermeasure mission (MCM) package equipped with four distinct imaging sonars, signal processing and computer algorithms to provide real-time, computer-aided detection and classification against the full spectrum of threat mines.
It does this by automatic localization mine-like objects and provides the operator with a visual image and a contact data list. The computer processing, signal processing and portable size of the AN/AQS-20C reduces the amount of time required to search an area while significantly increasing search-rate agility.
“AQS-20C is capable of enabling true single-pass, minehunting when paired with the Barracuda mine neutralizer,” said Wade Knudson, senior director of Raytheon’s Undersea Warfare Systems business division.
The system is platform agnostic, capable of integration onto various tow vehicles and a key element in single sortie detect-to-engage capability, which combines the search-detect-identify and neutralize elements of an MCM mission on a single platform.
Further integration onto MCM Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) is scheduled for early 2020. It will be equipped aboard LCS vessels upon successful integration.
About Raytheon
Raytheon Company, with 2018 sales of $27 billion and 67,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 97 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I products and services, sensing, effects and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.
