Continuing the development of its AN/ALQ-254(V)1 Viper Shield digital electronic warfare (EW) suite for the Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70/72 (F-16V) multirole fighter, L3Harris announced at the Eurosatory 2024 defence exhibition in Paris that it has completed the system’s fourth software drop.
Anna Gragossian, general manager for surveillance solutions at L3Harris’ Space & Airborne Systems business, told ESD on 18 June that Drop 4 for Viper Shield successfully completed testing with the US Air Force’s Integrated Defensive Avionics Laboratory (IDAL) in May and is now in the lab with Lockheed Martin.
“During that testing the Viper Shield system successfully identified and displayed threats of interest, sorted through the background signal environment, and provided accurate situational awareness to the pilot,” Gragossian explained, noting that Drop 4 “is part of a spiral development effort that reduces development risk and uses production-representative hardware”.
Outlining the previous software drops, Gragossian said, “Our previous versions, which had some radar warning receiver (RWR) capability – Drop 2 and 3 – demonstrated seamless interoperability with the APG-83 AESA radar used on the F-16, proving that each system can operate without interfering with the other.”
The next major software drop is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024 and will include a full RWR and electronic countermeasures capability.
Gragossian noted that development of the system will be completed by the third quarter of next year, allowing production deliveries to be made to Lockheed Martin in the fourth quarter of 2025.
L3Harris has provided EW systems for F-16s for more than 30 years, but its Viper Shield EW suite replaces legacy analogue systems with a fully digital EW suite that is fully integrated with the aircraft’s radar and weapon systems. It can detect multiple hostile radar signals at the same time, can be continually updated, has fewer critical components, and is smaller and lighter than analogue systems.
The Viper Strike system can either be fully integrated within the aircraft or as a podded solution, meaning that it can be used to upgrade previous F-16s beyond Block 20 aircraft.
Lockheed Martin awarded L3Harris a cost-plus development contract to produce its Viper Shield EW suite for the F-16 Block 70/72 in early 2021. L3Harris is contracted to build 166 Viper Shield systems for a number of F-16 Block 70/72 international customers.
