Saab Surveillance is continuing to self-fund development of its ARTHUR (ARTtillery HUnting Radar) Weapon Locating Radar (WLR) to meet emerging requirements, a company official revealed at the IQPC Future Artillery conference held in London in May.
Bard Frostad, Saab Surveillanceā€™s senior military advisor, said 80 ARTHUR WLR systems have been exported to at least 12 countries (one not being disclosed), including Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom with operational use seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those deployed by Canada and Denmark in Afghanistan have since been returned to Sweden.
Artistā€™s impression of Saab ARTHUR WLR integrated into an ARTEC Boxer 8x8 platform, with the antenna in raised position. (Saab)
ARTHUR is designed to detect incoming conventional tube artillery and fire, artillery rockets, and mortar bombs, providing friendly forces with a warning of incoming fire. According to Saab, the system has had 95% availability in operations.
During a typical operating sequence, ARTHUR detects threats, filters, and prioritises them, then transmits this information to the artillery command and control system (ACCS), which allocates an artillery battery to engage the threat. It can also be used to adjust for variables during artillery fire.
Since its introduction to service with Norway and Sweden more than 20 years ago, the ARTHUR WLR has been upgraded to improve its detection range and target tracking capacity.
The current ARTHUR Mod C WLR has an instrumented range of 60 km, operates over an arc of 120Ā°, and can track more than 100 targets per minute.
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