Combat Systems

The Raptor’s combat computer systems and power are unmatched by any other fighter planned to be developed by 2020. The AN/APG-77 AESA radar, designed for air-superiority and strike operations, features a low-observable, active-aperture, electronically-scanned array that can track multiple targets in all kinds of weather. The AN/APG-77 changes frequencies more than 1,000 times per second to reduce the chance of being intercepted. The radar can also focus its emissions to overload enemy sensors, giving the plane an electronic-attack capability.[5]

The radar’s information is processed by the two Raytheon-built Common Integrated Processor (CIP)s. Each CIP operates at 10.5 billion instructions per second and has 300 megabytes of memory. Unprecedented amounts of information can be gathered from the radar and other onboard and offboard systems, filtered by the CIP, and offered in easy-to-digest ways on several cockpit displays, enabling the pilot to remain on top of complicated situations. The Raptor’s software is composed of over 1.7 million lines of code, most of which concerns processing data from the radar [6].

Although several recent Western fighters have had measures introduced to make them less detectable on radar, such as radar absorbent material coated S shaped intake ducts that shield the compressor fan from reflecting radar waves, the F-22A design has placed a much higher degree of importance on making the plane hard to detect than has previously been seen in fighter designs.