Northrop Grumman mine hunting system tests successfully

Northrop Grumman's AQS-24B mine hunting system successfully demonstrated its ability to perform synthetic aperture sonar processing in U.S. Navy tests.

The field tests were conducted by the U.S. Navy Central Command in Bahrain and involved the sonar being towed at 18 knots.

Northrop Grumman said the system was 12 for 12 in the demonstrations.

"The AQS-24B represents a significant advancement of the U.S. Navy's mine hunting capability, on both the MH-53E helicopters as well as the Mine Hunting Unmanned Surface Vessels," said Alan Lytle, vice president, Undersea Systems business unit, Northrop Grumman. "With the AQS-24B, Northrop Grumman and the Navy have worked together to effectively advance the state of the art in undersea synthetic aperture sonar."

The AQS-24B system is a high-resolution, side-scan sonar for real time detection, localization and classification of bottom and moored mines. It employs a laser line scanner for precision optical identification.

It's the latest mine counter-measure from the company, which was the first to field electro-optic mine identification.