An active electronically-scanned array fighter sensor, the Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR), has been successfully installed on a US Air force F-16 aircraft.

The radar system, built by Northrop Grumman, took less than five hours to install and integrate into existing F-16 Block 50/52s power, cooling and avionics systems.

The system will replace the mechanically-scanned array radars offering greater detection and tracking range, high-resolution synthetic aperture radar maps and interleaved mode operations for improved situational awareness and all-environment precision strike capability.

Northrop Grumman began a series of SABR flight demonstrations aboard the company’s test aircraft in November last year, successfully detecting and displaying multiple aerial targets and generating high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar ground maps.