Leonardo has always dedicated all of its resources to guaranteeing air, land, sea and space security, protecting cities, nations, companies, citizens and the environment alike.
Leonardo has earned the trust of customers all over the globe, who continue to choose us as their first-rate partner to counter the increasingly unpredictable threats to community safety.
Our historical excellence relies on significant, ongoing investments in research to develop technologies that meet present day needs, yet with a keen eye to the future.
Leonardo’s distinction in the development of safety and security solutions is exemplified by the KRONOS® family of multi-function and multi-mission radar systems dedicated to land and naval air surveillance and defence.
It is worth noting that the history of radar engineering coincides with the history of Leonardo. Without necessarily retracing the steps from Guglielmo Marconi to the present day, we like to think of ours as a history made of passion, of people who have never rested on their laurels but have always sought to embrace new challenges.
In radar engineering, the latest challenge is Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology, which represents a generational leap compared to mechanical scanning. Mechanically-scanned radars have achieved excellent levels of performance to date.
The challenge, however, was to meet the two-fold requirement of achieving greater effectiveness and improved efficiency. Today, land and naval defence faces evolving threats that require a better understanding of what is happening and improved responsiveness, using fewer operators and resources. In other words, we need to see better and respond more promptly, while reducing our energy power and workforce requirements.
AESA makes all of this possible, which is why Leonardo has decided to take a leading role in the development of this emerging technology. At Leonardo, AESA technology has started big – not merely as a collateral project, but with substantial investments in means and resources. One of the main steps was to invest in an internal foundry for the development of Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMCC) on Gallium Nitride (GaN) – the enabling technology that makes the company autonomous and independent – so as to optimise every requirement without any of the compromises deriving from specifications imposed by externally-sourced components.
The KRONOS® radar, stemming from the development of these technologies, can simultaneously and automatically perform surveillance, tracking, threat assessment and missile guidance activities against multiple threats. As particularly high-performance systems, especially in terms of coverage, acquisition speed and tracking continuity (even at low or very low altitudes), KRONOS® radars can be used simultaneously with different surveillance functions and are able to detect even the smallest air and naval threats without varying their rotation speed or operating mode.
KRONOS® FAMILY