Mercury Introduces First Commercial Air-to-Ground SAR Radar Flight Testing Simulator

ANDOVER, Mass., Dec. 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Mercury Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY, www.mrcy.com), a technology company that delivers mission-critical processing power to the edge, today introduced the first commercially available flight testing simulator for air-to-ground synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. The ARES-SAR product builds on more than 25 years of test and train technology from the Mercury Processing Platform to enable government and commercial organizations to save time and costs by reducing the need for actual flight testing through the simulation of realistic SAR scenarios on the ground.

SAR systems have become an integral tool for crewed and uncrewed airborne and space-based systems. These systems allow pilots of fifth-generation fighter jets to navigate safely, target munitions, and perform battle damage assessments in all-weather conditions, day or night. They allow satellites to conduct environmental monitoring, mapping, and surveillance missions. A significant portion of the time and cost of developing these systems is consumed by real-world testing, which today can cost millions of dollars and require many flight tests over months or years.

ARES-SAR builds on Mercury’s heritage of digital RF memory (DRFM)-based electronic warfare training, test, and evaluation solutions. In 2020, the company introduced ARES3100, an advanced radar environment simulator for testing and training air-to-air radar capabilities in a laboratory environment or an anechoic chamber.

ARES-SAR can be employed by itself or alongside ARES3100, as both use Mercury’s software interface that makes it easy to quickly configure multiple test scenarios that include various geographies, imaging modes, targets, environmental effects, and countermeasures. Development of ARES-SAR was funded by the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office Simulation, Training and Instrumentation, and the product is in use by several Air Force and Navy customers.

“To ensure technological superiority on the battlefield, organizations responsible for fielding air and space systems must develop and deploy advanced capabilities in a more timely and cost-effective way,” said Roya Montakhab, Mercury’s GM of Platform Systems. “ARES-SAR allows radar systems to undergo robust qualification programs without ever leaving the ground.”

For more information, visit mrcy.com or contact Mercury at info@mrcy.com.

Mercury Systems – Innovation that matters^®
Mercury Systems is a technology company that delivers mission-critical processing power to the edge, making advanced technologies profoundly more accessible for today’s most challenging aerospace and defense missions. The Mercury Processing Platform allows customers to tap into innovative capabilities from silicon to system scale, turning data into decisions on timelines that matter. Mercury’s products and solutions are deployed in more than 300 programs and across 35 countries, enabling a broad range of applications in mission computing, sensor processing, command and control, and communications. Mercury is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts, and has 24 locations worldwide. To learn more, visit mrcy.com. (Nasdaq: MRCY)