Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System

The Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) is the United States Navy's program that develops crewed helicopters to assist the surface fleet in anti-submarine warfare.

[citation needed] In October 1970, the UH-2 was selected to be the platform to function as the interim Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) helicopter.

[1] During the course of the 1960s, LAMPS had evolved out of an urgent requirement to develop a crewed helicopter that would be capable of supporting a non-aviation vessel and serve as its tactical Anti-Submarine Warfare arm.

Widely referred to as LAMPS Mark I, the advanced sensors, processors, and display capabilities aboard the helicopter enabled such equipped ships to extend their situational awareness beyond the line-of-sight limitations that unavoidably hampered the performance of shipboard radars, as well as the short distances involved in the acoustic detection and prosecution of underwater threats associated with hull-mounted sonars.

[3] Navy based its requirements on the Army's UTTAS specification to decrease costs from commonality to be the new airframe to carry the Lamps MK III avionics.