Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems - History

History

Electronic Systems' direct roots date to 1938, when Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s Radio Division moved to Baltimore, Maryland from Massachusetts and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In 1939, Westinghouse more than doubled its manufacturing area in its Baltimore location to accommodate production of the then highly-secret SCR-270 aircraft warning radar. In 1941, an SCR-270 radar detected the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor; its warnings went unheeded because of high-level uncertainty about the new technology's reliability. The first ground-based radar built for the Army Signal Corps, the SCR-270 proved to be the only model to stay in action throughout all of World War II. From 1941–1945 the Westinghouse Radio Division manufactured approximately 50 products during the war. Until 1942, most of this was radio equipment; later production shifted to radar products. Wartime production included ground-based and naval radio and radar, electronic fuses, and torpedoes.

In 1953, the unit patented key technologies for Pulse-Doppler radar, making possible airborne systems that can detect both stationary and moving targets, determine range, and distinguish targets from background "clutter." Pulse-Doppler is the basis for all airborne radars in use today. By 1966, the division designed and developed a miniaturized black-and-white camera that captured images from the Project Apollo Lunar Module that landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. In 1967, The world's first solid-state radar, the AN/APQ-120 for the F-4 Phantom II fighter, was produced by the division.

In 1974, the division began development of the AN/APG-66 radar for the F-16; to date the unit has produced over 6,000 radars for various versions of the F-16. In 1976, Westinghouse Electronic Systems delivered the first E-3 Sentry AWACS long-range airborne surveillance radar. In 1996, Westinghouse was selected to design, build and test the radar for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, what became the AN/APG-81.