Surveillance leadership remains on the radar

JORN – the Jindalee Operational Radar Network – one of the jewels in Australia’s technological crown, is now undergoing a $1.2bn technology upgrade.

The Jindalee Operational Radar Network, makes a crucial contribution to surveillance of Australia's northern approaches.

Think outback: silence, scrub, red earth, isolation. Now think high-technology long-range radar. And then put them together. That’s the cognitive dissonance created by JORN, the Jindalee Operational Radar Network. That and the fact that JORN is thought to be the best sensor of its kind in the world.

JORN is one of the jewels in Australia’s technological crown. It has proven superior to every other over the horizon radar (OTHR) in the world and is now undergoing a $1.2bn technology upgrade – Project AIR2025 Ph.6 – to extend the system’s life beyond 2040.

To support the upgrade, earlier this month prime contractor BAE Systems Australia, the University of Adelaide and Defence’s Science and Technology Group (DSTG) announced the opening of the JORN Open Innovation Network (JOIN) Centre for Advanced Defence Research in High Frequency Technologies (CADR-HF).

“The JOIN Centre represents a new era of collaboration and will create opportunities, expedite research and lead to breakthrough advancements in high frequency systems,” Ben Hudson, BAE Systems Australia chief executive says.

“It will continue Australia’s reputation as being a world-leader in the development and export of high frequency technology.”

“JORN provides critical surveillance for the Integrated Force, enabling Australia’s National Defence objectives,” says Air Commodore Regina Gorton, the RAAF’s Director General Air and Space Surveillance and Control.

“This collaboration is important for nurturing and advancing the HF-sensing technologies that will help to ensure JORN remains the world’s leading over-the-horizon radar system into the future.”

Defence’s investment will also foster the development of science and technology skills and provide opportunity for emerging talent, she adds

The JORN OTHR consists of a network of three sensors which bounce HF radar signals off the ionosphere, between 70 and 350km above us, to achieve detection ranges of more than 3000km, depending on ionospheric conditions.

Between them, they cover Australia’s northern approaches across an arc of almost 180 degrees, looking for suspicious or hostile aircraft, missiles and ships.

JORN covers thousands of square kilometres continuously. You can’t send a squadron of bombers or a flotilla of warships or, nowadays, hypersonic missiles to Australia without them being spotted early.

The sensors are located in remote, outback areas: Laverton, WA; Alice Springs, NT; and Longreach in Queensland. Their sheer size is daunting: the Longreach receiver array is 3km long, the Alice Springs one 2.8km long and the Laverton array is a whopping 6km long. They’re located in the middle of Australia, partly for security and partly also because their minimum detection range is so great they need to be set well back from the land and sea areas they’re covering.

Thanks to their sensitivity, it’s been reported JORN can detect aircraft operating in East Timor. It can also detect wave heights and wind directions and even reportedly detect some stealthy aircraft as well. Its ability to detect missile launches was tested in Project DUNDEE (Down UNDer Early warning Experiment), a classified joint program with the US Department of Defence in 1997.

The very first JORN OTHR, at Alice Springs, was built back in the early 1980s.

In 2018, BAE Systems Australia won the prime contract for the JORN upgrade, Project AIR2025 Ph.6, which is designed to increase sensitivity and resolution by a factor of ten. This upgrade program (which has 110 Australian suppliers) includes new digital transmitters and receivers, developed by DSTG and BAE Systems Australia, as well as new frequency management systems and software to enable automation and much higher performance.

BAE Systems Australia, DSTG and the Universities of Adelaide and South Australia established JOIN in 2017 to support AIR2025 Ph.6. The new CADRE-HF is designed to develop the highly specialised workforce needed to maintain Australia’s leadership in HF systems and OTHR. It also means key know-how and intellectual property is developed and retained in Australia, enabling future investment and innovation.

The new centre will include two new professorships at the University of Adelaide: a BAE-funded chair in HF Systems at the School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering; and a Defence-funded chair in Space and Ionospheric Physics at the School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences.

All of the JORN technology is developed and manufactured in Australia, says BAE Systems Australia. Hardware for Phase 6 is already in production and integration of the components and software is about to begin. A new command and control system and user interface will be unveiled at its control centre, 1 Remote Sensor Unit at RAAF Base Edinburgh.

An important member of the company’s JORN supply chain is Adelaide start-up QuantX Systems. QuantX manufactures the world’s most stable clocks using sapphire oscillators and is a spin-off from the University of Adelaide’s Institute of Photonics and Advanced Sensing. Its ability to generate incredibly accurate time signals (an important contributor to radar performance) will enhance the sensitivity and resolution of JORN by a factor of ten.

The success of JORN led last year to BAE Systems Australia exporting a multi-mission digital HF receiver system for one of the three US Navy Maritime-centric Over the Horizon Radars (MASOR) in an $18m deal. This radar network is a critical part of the US war against narcotics and enables the US Navy to identify targets of interest at ranges up to 3000km.

The HF receiver was designed and developed by BAE Systems Australia and a follow-on contract will see the other two MASOR radars upgraded also.