Antenna Control Unit Stimulator for OMT
HENSOLDT Australia has delivered an enhancement to the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) Radar Operational Maintenance Trainer (OMT), which enables technicians to develop the skills required to operate and maintain radar systems in a controlled, ‘real-life‘ environment.
Developed in Australia, the Antenna Control Unit (ACU) Stimulator emulates a working antenna and pedestal system. The trainees can now interact as if it were an actual antenna, enabling them to learn how to operate the complete system and respond to issues and malfunctions in a realistic and timely manner.
This enhancement aligns the OMT software with that used in operational radars, rather than it being a modified and unique training software release. This reduces life-cycle costs and allows the OMT to be used as an effective rollout platform for future software releases, minimising downtime requirements for operational system through its 20-year life-of-type.
HENSOLDT Australia has been providing operational and maintenance support, installation, testing and evaluation of radars across a number of RAAF bases and naval platforms. This gave the development team a clear understanding of the end-user environment. HENSOLDT Australia has expanded its engineering, technical, repair and manufacturing capabilities, which allowed extensive work to be undertaken to explore the system environment, assess sources of risk, develop requirements and formulate design.
With acceptance testing of the Australian-built stimulator complete, it is now operational in the OMT. With this success, the second and spare system will be manufactured and delivered in 2021, with the product available for export to support not only HENSOLDT radars, but also other ATC radars.