Northrop Grumman Corp. is combining decades of signal-intelligence (SIGINT) experience with an open-standard design architecture to develop a new SIGINT sensor for the U.S. Air Force. Working under the Air Force’s Global High-altitude Open-system Sensor Technology (GHOST) program, Northrop Grumman is developing a prototype sensor with airborne and ground components that can perform high-altitude intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). The sensor (see the figure) will be based on an open standards hardware and software architecture that can be scaled to an application, providing ISR functionality for both manned and unmanned Air Force vehicles.
Ben Davies, vice-president and general manager for networked information solutions at Northrop Grumman, said: “Leveraging our SAGE technology and 45 years of SIGINT mission expertise, our platform-agnostic GHOST sensor is a next-generation intelligence data collection and exploitation system.” The GHOST sensor is being designed to support rapid system enhancement while also featuring an agile architecture that can quickly be adopted to new threats. The SAGE (Space Awareness and Global Exploitation ) system is a multiple-sensor, multiple-mission system that merges data from many different sources on a continuous basis.