Non-American AESA radar developments

The rest of the world seems to be catching up with the US in the field of AESA radar technology. Russia, Europe, Israel, India and China seem to be catching up fast.

For more on AESA technology, check out : www.ihud.com.../AESA%20bible.txt (download the .txt file)
www.drdo.com...

RUSSIAN developments :

The Irbis(snow leapord in Russian) AESA :

The Irbis is a co-development between LRDE of India and Tikhomirov NIIP of Russia at a cost of US$160 million.

This new new, active phased-array airborne radar is to find its way into India's Su-30 MKI's by 2010 (replacing the present NO11M Bars phased array radar)

The Zhuk-MSF / Sokol-3 from the Phazotron NIIR OKB

Zhuk-MSF is the most up to date radar design by Phazotron. Sokol uses a non-equidistant rather than the traditional linear radar field distribution, which, Phazotron says, allows a fivefold radar cost reduction over a traditionally designed phased array radar. The production radar will have a 980mm antenna diameter (37dB gain) and weigh 275kg. The radar tracks 24-30 targets, engages the most dangerous 6 to 8 of them. Its electronic beam steering will give ±70 deg spatial coverage in both axes. Power output is 8kW peak, 2 - 3kW average. It is designed for high reliability, and is frequency agile with LPI and anti ECM features. Phazotron says it will be capable of interleaving between air-to-air and air-to-ground modes.

Velocity search: 245km head-on vs fighter target.(This figure is no longer quoted. The mode may have been removed)

Range-while-search, lookup mode: 180-190km head-on / 80km tail-on vs fighter target.

Range-while-search, lookdown mode : 170km head-on / 60km tail-on vs fighter target.

Track-while-scan mode: 150km head-on vs fighter target.

Against a large target such as a bomber or AWACS aircraft detection range comfortably exceeds 300km.


^^ The Sokol AESA that will find its way into the PAK-FA (Russian 5th gen stealth fighter that will fly in 2007)

The Koyopo-F AESA :



The electronically scanned Kopyo-F is still under development and is expected to cost around 50% more than the Kopyo-M. It is a lighter and more reliable set, coming in three versions that offer low, medium and higher ranges. With an antenna diameter of 440 mm, it is aimed for small nosed aircraft or as a rearward facing radar for the Su-30/Su-34 series.The transmitter has a peak power output of 4 kW and 0.4 kW average.

It has been offered to India for the LCA.

ISRAELI developments :

The Elta EL/M-2052 (offered to India) :



Features :
> 1500 + T/R modules (the F-22's has 2000)
> ridiculously high tracking capability of 64 targets
> In air-to-sea mode, it can acquire and track surface targets up to 160 nm away
> see more in the pic

EUROPEAN developments

The AMSAR (Airborne Multi-mode Solid-state Active-array Radar) for the Eurofighter and Rafale :

To overcome these problems and shortfalls of the CAPTOR (the Eurofighter's present radar) a project was launched in 1993 with 50/50 funding from the UK and France and technical input from Germany. This project termed, AMSAR aims to provide the Typhoon and Rafale (and other future European air systems) with an entirely solid-state advanced active array (although the Rafale is equipped with a phased array radar, the RBE.2, it is a passive system rather than a solid-state active array). A consortium company was formed soon after called GTDAR (or GEC-Thomson-DASA Airborne Radar).

The program has an intended length of 11 years and is split into three phases. The first two of these examined the feasibility and requirements for a new generation of active arrays as well as new methods for fabricating the expensive Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuit (MMIC) modules. The target price for the modules is around £400 to £500 compared to several thousand at present. In addition a bench scale unit was to be constructed demonstrating the overall feasibility of the project. Both of these phases were completed by mid-1998 with the testing of a 144 module array utilising an advanced MMIC featuring a custom ASIC and a multi-layer ceramic substrate housed in a metal matrix composite unit.

Following a successful demonstration of the 144 module array the British, French and German Defence Ministries have authorised the third stage of the project to proceed. This will see the construction of a 1000+ module full-scale unit which will subsequently undergo flight testing aboard BAE Systems's Canadair avionics test aircraft.

Although tranche-3 definition will not occur for some years it is highly likely that, assuming all goes well and the costs are kept down AMSAR will be incorporated. Such a system would yield very noticeable improvements in capability and further reduce the chances of detection of the Typhoon by opposing platforms. In addition the program combined with certain other European ventures (such as the UK's FOAS project) is going further by examining the integration of multiple arrays integrated into the aircraft structure, a so called Conformal Smart Skin Array. Using high speed wide band optical links and a centralised processing system the entire aircraft would become one giant integrated sensor. Although this will not be of any use to the Eurofighter it may well be deployable on its follow-on as well as FOAS.


^^The AMSAR


^^ AMSAR diagram

INDIAN developments

India's DRDO subsideries LRDE and ERDE have developed several phased array radars (like the Rajendra 3D radar , etc)

Work is now on to make AESA radar's. Significant progress has been shown in making T/R modules alredy.

DRDO's official website talks of the Indian AESA developments > Indian AESA radar protype's technologies (from the OFFICIAL source - DRDO) Please take time to check out the link

Infact work on the necessary transmit/receive modules was done back in 1998 itself as revealed by Dr. Harinarayana (the father of the LCA programme) in this interview

AESA radar parts displayed at Aero India '03 :


India is working on this AESA technology to develop an AESA radar for the LCA (which presently will only have the MMR which is a PD radar)


India is also developing a new AESA radar ( link ) with a range of 300 km for its indigenous AWACS aircraft, that will be mounted on the Embraer ERJ-145. It is to be completed by 2008

Here is a picture of it from the official source :

India is reviving the development of an indigenous Airborne Early Warning And Control System (AEWACS), which it had abandoned in 1999. “We have submitted a proposal to build an AEWACS with a next-generation active phased-array radar installed on a smaller aircraft, unlike the rotating antenna in the earlier Airborne Surveillance Platform (ASP),” said K.U. Limaye, director, Centre for Air Borne Systems (CABS). Limaye, who is also Director of the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) of the state-owned Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), added that the airborne radar could be integrated on a Brazilian Embraer 145 aircraft.

The new AEWACS' mission avionics and sensors will be integrated via a dual MIL-STD 1533 B digital databus, with software programmes providing tactical aids, cues and alerts. The mission system will provide automatic radar control, automatic detection and track initiation, reduced false alarms, improved track continuity, sensor and databus fusion and modern communications management. It will also provide adaptive tracking performance, fast track update rate, reliable local situation display and computer-assisted decisions.

The LRDE-developed roof-mounted radar will be an active phased-array, pulse compression, Doppler radar operating in the S-band. The fixed antenna, with extremely low sidelobe levels, will comprise 200 transmitter/receiver modules mounted on top of the aircraft's fuselage. The best range performance will be achieved in a 150 degree sector sideways, with the performance reduced in forward and aft directions outside of this sector. The instrumented range will be 243nm and the typical detection range for a combat aircraft-sized contact will be 190nm. The radar's electronically scanning beam will be controlled by an automatic and intelligent energy management system which will optimise the beam position and compared to conventional, rotodome solutions, will provide quicker detection verification, increased tracking range, and improved tracking performance even for highly manoeuvring targets.

Work on the ASP's Technology Demonstrator (TD) began in earnest and the first flight of the TD, an Avro HS-748 twin-turboprop aircraft equipped with a rotodome fabricated by BAE Systems, took place in November 1991 at the ASTE's Bangalore facility. By 1994, the LRDE and state-owned Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) had completed development and fabrication of the ASP's radar and related electronics and a fresh round of technology evaluation and flight testing got underway, following a funding of Rs 250 million from the DRDO. By mid-1996, work on most aspects of the AWACS project had been completed, and the LRDE radar demonstrated an effective range of 300km when called upon to detect a low-flying target cruising at Mach 1.5 speed. However, the sole ASP TD perished in a fatal crash at Arrakonam near Chennai in January 1999, killing eight personnel, and the ASWAC project was consequently put on hold.

-- From Force Magazine - April 2004

Within two months of signing the $1.1-billion Phalcon Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems contract, India is looking to revive its own $400-million AWACS project.

To be called the Mini-AWACS system, the project harkens back to the indigenous airborne surveillance platform (ASP) effort shelved by India's Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in 1999 after a modified Avro HS-748 crashed, killing four scientists and four air force officers on board. The accident was blamed on a rotodome that blew off, indicating a failure in the modification process.

However, this time DRDO is expected to mount the Mini-AWACS' phased-array radar on an in-production executive jet, according to K.U. Limaye, director of the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment and head of CABS. An experimental radar is already in testing, he added.

-- India's Big AWACS Plans; Mini-concept provides another chance to use research begun in 1999 from AWST - April 2004


In addition to these India has been offered full transfer of technology of the latest Super Hornet's AN/APG-79 AESA radar technology if it chooses the Super Hornet in its presently active 9 billion $ tender.



Sources :

www.acig.org...
paralay.narod.ru...
www.eurofighter-typhoon.co.uk...
www.acig.org...
www.drdo.com...
www.tribuneindia.com...
mediamanager.embraer.com.br...
www.aeroindiaseminar.com...
www.hindu.com...
www.indiadefence.com...
kuku.sawf.org...
www.aviationnow.com.../2004sb16.xml

[edit on 2-10-2005 by Stealth Spy]

Originally posted by Stealth Spy
The rest of the world seems to be catching up with the US in the field of AESA radar technology. Russia, Europe, Israel, India and China seem to be catching up fast.

What an EXCELLENT post!
The only comment I would like to make is that while the rest of the world is "catching up" with the US in the field of AESA technology, the US is finding ways of completing the killchain using AESA technology for not only intel gathering and information dissemination but also for engagement.

The AESA radar on the F-22 has the ability to emit High Power Microwaves as a focused direct energy weapon. So while the rest of the world make be embracing AESA technology, that does not mean that their technology is then equal to the most advanced systems the US may be researching and or fielding.

(Didn't mean to sound all nationalistic, just wanted to explain that the US companies aren't sitting on their laurels letting others catch up)

Natalie~

I'd be willing to bet a bundle that the other countries developing electronically scanned arrays are also looking into HPM capabilities.

After all, they'd be fools not to now that the cat's out of the bag.

[edit on 10/2/05 by xmotex]

Originally posted by intelgurl
What an EXCELLENT post!
The only comment I would like to make is that while the rest of the world is "catching up" with the US in the field of AESA technology, the US is finding ways of completing the killchain using AESA technology for not only intel gathering and information dissemination but also for engagement.

The AESA radar on the F-22 has the ability to emit High Power Microwaves as a focused direct energy weapon. So while the rest of the world make be embracing AESA technology, that does not mean that their technology is then equal to the most advanced systems the US may be researching and or fielding.

(Didn't mean to sound all nationalistic, just wanted to explain that the US companies aren't sitting on their laurels letting others catch up)

Natalie~

Thanks Intelgurl

Yes, it is an obvious fact that despite these developments around the world, the USA is the sole and undisputed leader in this field (like many other fields as well) and will perhaps be the leader for may years to come.

Although the rest of the world is in posession of High Energy Microwave technologies that will fry the elcetronics of its target, none of them seem to have integrated this into an aircrafts radar. Russia will be adding HEM's into its S-500 system that will enter service in ~2009. India have made some impressive progress here as well. Check out this thread >> India's electron-accelerated pulse-power gigahertz microwave beam weapon : KALI ( Try and ignore the efforts to troll the thread by you know who )

And the interesting thing is that the LCA Tejas is getting systems that will protect it from a High Energy Microwave attack !! :

Another defense institute in Bangalore is using a microwave-producing version of Kali which the scientists use for testing the vulnerability of the electronic systems going into the LCA Tejas under development and designing electrostatic shields to protect them from microwave attack by the enemy.

-- from the same thread >> www.abovetopsecret.com... (all sources and links are listed here)

Israle's Phalcon AWACS ( also sold to India, Chile) is perhaps the world's best and most powerful AWACS.

The world's most advanced AEWC&C system, the PHALCON, was developed and produced by ELTA using Active Phased Array Electronic Scanning Technology rather than a mechanically rotating antenna (rotodome) used by current AWACS systems, giving PHALCON greater operational flexibility and performance by several orders of magnitude. The Phalcon AEW&C aircraft is based on four sensors: phased-array radar, phased-array IFF, ESM/ELINT and CSM/COMINT. A unique fusion technology continuously cross-relates the data gathered by all sensors. When one of the sensors reports a detection, the system automatically initiates an active search of the complementary sensors.

It provides full 360° coverage. This electronically steered beam radar delivers a tremendous advantage over mechanical rotating antenna, as it supports the tracking a high maneuvering targets. The radar can detect even low flying objects from distances of hundreds of kilometers, day and night, under all weather conditions. Verification beams sent at specific, individual, newly detected targets eliminate false alarms. Moreover, track initiation is achieved in 2 to 4 seconds as compared to 20 to 40 seconds with a rotodome radar
The IFF system employs solid state phased array technology to perform interrogation, decoding, target detection and tracking. A monopulse technique is used to implement azimuth measurement. The IFF data is automatically correlated with the phased array radar.

The ESM/ELINT system receives, analyzes and locates radar signals, covering 360o. It combines high sensitivity with high probability of intercept, and achieves excellent accuracy in bearing measurement. The system uses narrow-band super-heterodyne receivers and wide-band instantaneous frequency measurement (IFM) techniques to provide very high accuracy and probability of intercept of airborne and surface emitters. Very high bearing accuracy for all received signals is achieved through Differential Time of Arrival (DTOA) measurements. The system also collects and analyzes ELINT data.

The PHALCON's CSM/COMINT receives in UHF, VHF and HF, rapidly searching for airborne, shipborne or ground communications signals of interest. Selected radio nets can be monitored for signal activity. A DF capability locates targets. Detected signals can be assigned to monitoring receivers instantaneously. The system makes extensive use of computers to reduce the load on operators.

BAE Systems Seaspray 7000E AESA radar for helicopters

BAE SYSTEMS has developed the world's first production Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar for helicopters. The Seaspray 7000E is being officially launched at the Farnborough International Air Show and is the latest in BAE SYSTEMS, family of Seaspray surveillance radars. The 7000E is also suitable for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and light maritime patrol aircraft.

Seaspray 7000E provides multi-mode performance in a much smaller volume and mass, with simplified installation and at a reduced cost, compared with equivalent mechanically scanned radar.

"The AESA technology together with the engineering implementation ensures that failures cause only graceful performance degradation, thus offering high operational availability," said Dr David Hughes, Executive Vice President, Helicopter Systems. By means of a software upgrade, the sensor can provide a wide range of extended surveillance modes, such as moving target indication and high resolution ground mapping or interface with the weapon system to provide missile target and guidance information.

Seaspray 7000E is the outcome of the on-going product development activities of the Edinburgh-based Sensor Systems Division (SSD) of BAE SYSTEMS Avionics. It comprises just two Line Replaceable Units easing installation and reducing volume and mass. The E-Processor and AESA scanner are typically at least 25% lighter than their mechanically scanned radar equivalents. Seaspray 7000E uses industry-standard interfaces to communicate with other mission sensors and avionics, and is controlled and displayed through the aircraft's Human/Machine Interface (HMI).

Seaspray 7000E's Direct Digital Synthesis generated digital pulse compression waveform supports optimised performance in all modes. The radar has been designed to function over the full spectrum of air, land and sea surveillance operational requirements. Seaspray 7000E provides small target and long range detection, target classification, using high resolution range profiling and Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar imaging. The radar has weather and navigation modes, multiple target track-while-scan and a sensor fusion capability.

Optional modes include high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar ground mapping, Ground Moving Target Indication, air to air, Electronic Support Measures integration offering high accuracy angle of arrival information and Identification Friend or Foe integration. Seaspray 7000E features low probability of intercept coupled with a high gain antenna with low side lobe performance.

full article at >> defence-data.com...

Ericsson Erieye AESA Radar for the Swedish S100B ARGUS AWACS ..

The mission radar, the Flygburen Spaning Radar with the Swedish Air Force designation FSR 890, is based on the Erieye side looking airborne radar (SLAR) from Ericsson Microwave Systems. The Erieye SLAR is a long-range radar, fitted with fixed active phased array antennae and operating within the 2GHz to 4GHz, NATO E to F bands, (the US S band). The 9m-long, 900kg antenna unit is mounted on the upper spine of the fuselage and gives the aircraft its distinctive appearance.

The Erieye radar provides 360° coverage with optimum performance of the radar over the 150° azimuthal sectors on each side of the aircraft. The radar can detect fighter aircraft at a range of 350km in a dense hostile electronic warfare environment, in heavy radar clutter and at low target altitudes. The radar has a sea surveillance mode.

The Erieye system has full interoperability with NATO Air Defence Command Systems. The system uses solid-state electronics, open-system architecture and ruggedised commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, with general-purpose programmable workstations and full-colour liquid crystal displays.

The radar incorporates an Identification Friend or Foe and a Secondary Surveillance Radar (IFF SSR) with an electronic support measures unit operating over the NATO E to J bands from 2GHz to 18GHz.

The Radar can be mounted on the EMB-145:


For the S-100B Argus AWACS :

NORA – ACTIVE ELECTRONICALLY SCANNED ARRAY

Ericsson’s future airborne radar is Not Only a Radar, NORA, but also a complete electronic warfare system including jamming and data communication. The new radar will use an Active Electronically Scanned Array, AESA, built up with approximately 1000 individual transmit/receive modules. The antenna, mounted on a single-axis platform, will give well over 200˚ coverage in azimuth. NORA will offer superior performance by virtue of a number of core capabilities at Ericsson – beam agility, beam widening, multi-channel processing, target-specific waveforms and low radar cross-section.

www.airforce-technology.com...

Thought this would be interesting:

By Noah Shachtman, DefenseTech.org

The British government was spooked back in 1935. Not because of Hitler’s air force or his infantry. Because of his death ray.

Newspapers screamed that the Nazis might have a super-weapon that could incinerate living tissue or detonate a bomb at long distance. Flooded by letters begging for a response, the British Air Ministry asked prominent physicist Robert Watson-Watt to see if a radio-wave-based death ray was feasible.

Within ten days Watson-Watt reported that such a weapon was unlikely. But using radio waves to locate an approaching bomber was a real possibility. And that's how radar was born.

Now, seventy years later, the invention may be coming full circle, Aviation Week reports. The Pentagon is actively developing active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars that might be "used as weapons. They are fulfilling the U.S. Air Force's desire for offensive tools that can find enemy threats, accurately identify them and immediately strike."

Some of the airborne AESA radars... use thousands of small transmitters/receivers, each a couple of inches square, that allow the array to conduct many tasks simultaneously. Those include detection of small, even stealthy targets, tracking and communications... and "jamming"... Possible AESA techniques for attacking another radar could include burning through the target radar's antenna side-lobes, filter side-lobes, or other known features of the target system. Radar specialists suggest it is reasonable to suppose this capability is already available to some fielded systems...

[Airborne radar weapon development] appear[s] to be focused on cruise missiles and self-defense against anti-radiation, home-on-jam and air-to-air missiles. The radars seem particularly effective against the latter categories because energy available to focus on the approaching missile increases as an inverse square as distance decreases.

Radar's close cousins, High Power Microwaves (HPMs), are also being groomed as energy weapons. They tend to generate ultra-strong bursts across a range of frequencies, for just a few trillionths of a second. AESA would zap targets with longer, more directed blasts.

"High-power microwave [HPM weapons] on an aircraft is an engineering challenge, particularly when you have a person in it," says a senior Pentagon official. "It's a lot easier to shield electronics [needed to control the aircraft] than it is to shield a body. Also, the closer I can get to the target, the more precise I can be [with an energy beam], the less power I need and the wider range of effects I can achieve."

But take this all with a healthy spoonful of salt. So-called "directed energy" weapons have been just around the corner for decades.

From

The Koyopo's and the Sokol's from Russia are considered as only semi-AESA and are said ot use more of PESA technologies (Passive electronically scanned).

However Russia's Tikhomirov NIIP institute has now developed a 100% AESA radar incorporating technologies equivalent to American AESA technology...its called the Epaulet-A

It is only a technology demonstrator as yet and in its present form has only 68 T/R modules ... nevertheless - a working AESA radar.

by Piotr Butowski

Tikhomirov NIIP institute presented a small Epaulet-A active electronically scanned antenna (AESA) radar.

Unlike another AESA radar, Zhuk-A, shown by Phazotron-NIIR company in the neighboring pavilion, the Epaulet was not a mock-up, but a fully functioning experimental radar dismounted for the time of exposition from the test stand. According to NIIP representatives, the radar operates within frequency range X (centimeter wavelength). The radiation power in each of the antenna channels "amounts to 8-1OW, which may be compared to 5-8W emitted by foreign radars"; noise factor amounts to 3dB, whereas the efficiency factor is about 30%.

The Epaulet-A radar has been built almost exclusively from Russian components with use of Russian technology, which is one of the basic conditions required by Russian air forces for the equipment to be installed in the fifth-generation fighter. The Epaulet-A is an experimental radar used for developing AESA technology and it is composed of only 68 transmit-receive modules; the next radars may be equipped with aerials of any form and size. The price of a single module "will be reduced to an acceptable level, provided that the same technology is used also for other series radiolocation systems made for military and civil applications" say NIIP officials.

A picture >>

more at www.ato.ru...





[edit on 7-12-2005 by Stealth Spy]

MiG-35 to Be Equipped with Active Phased Array Radar

The MiG-35 multirole combat airplane which it is planned to offer for the Indian fighter tender, will have a radar with an active phased antenna array (AFAR).

“Right now the Fazotron-NIIR corporation is intensifying efforts on the AFAR creation for these airplanes,” a source in the defense industrial complex reported to Interfax-AVN. He noted that for participation in the tender, it is necessary to assemble and test a experimental example of an AFAR in good time. It earlier had been reported that India plans to purchase 126 fighters at a total cost of nearly 9 billion dollars for its air force.

According to the information of Indian sources, part of the fighters will be delivered in ready form, and part, it is possible, will be assembled under license at enterprises of the Indian HAL corporation. It is expected that besides the Russian MiG-29, the Swedish JAS-39C and French Mirage-2000-9 will take part in the Indian tender.

Source: 25.11.05, Avia.RU

link

_____


AFAR = Aktivnaya Faziruyushchaya Antennaya Reshyotka - the "Active Phased Antenna Grid" (in English).

FAR = ESA (as per the American definition)

AFAR = AESA

_____

Russian design bureau RSK MiG has upped the stakes in India’s 126-aircraft lightweight fighter contest by announcing its intention to offer a production variant of the MiG-29OVT demonstrator that debuted at last August’s Moscow air show. Dubbed the MiG-35, the new design will be offered in response to a request for proposals to be released by New Delhi late this month or in early 2006, says RSK MiG director general Alexey Fedorov.

The proposed MiG-35 variant, which supersedes an earlier RSK MiG offer to India of the MiG-29M2, would be equipped with the MiG-29OVT’s RD-33MK all-axis thrust-vectoring engines, an active phased-array radar and have an airframe life of 6,000h. “We have delivered documents to India and are optimistic about the results of this tender,” says Fedorov. The design is expected to face competition from the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault Mirage 2000, Lockheed Martin F-16, Saab Gripen and, potentially, the Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon to replace MiG-21s.

www.flightinternat... ional.com/Articles/MiG+sweetens+Indian+fighter+offer.html

Israel’s Elta Systems Ltd. is planning a maiden flight test of its new EL/M 2052 active phased-array fire control radar, which is aimed at the international fighter aircraft upgrade market.

The multimode radar, unveiled publicly at the Aero India exhibition in Bangalore earlier this year, synthesizes synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and phased-array radar capabilities developed for larger reconnaissance platforms or pods into a single system small enough to be packed in the nose of fighter jets.

Based on solid-state active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar technology, the EL/M 2052 is designed to operate in air-to-air, precision ground strike and air-to-sea modes at the same time, with each mode optimized to find and track multiple targets with exceedingly high resolution. According to specifications released by the company, the radar will weigh 130 to 180 kilograms (286 to 396 pounds) and operate on four to 10 kilovolt amperes of power, depending on antenna size.

In the air-to-air role, the radar is designed to detect, track and target multiple aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles or low-flying targets such as helicopters. At sea, the radar is designed to search, classify and track targets, while also performing maritime patrol and surveillance functions. And, in the air-to-ground role, the radar exploits SAR technology to sort through clutter and other terrain-obscuring elements to identify and track ground objects on the move, according to company marketing data.

“This radar introduces new dimensions to air superiority and advanced strike missions. It’s a real breakthrough because of all the different types of targets and missions that can be handled at the same time,” Elta President Israel Livnat told C4ISR Journal.

In an early March interview, Livnat said Elta had invested a significant amount of independent research and development funds on technologies incorporated in the new radar. The company is now testing the system on the ground and subsequently will test it on a Boeing 737.

“We’ve done a lot of ground tests and field checks, and will soon begin flying the radar in our 737 test bed. At the same time, we’re examining a derivative of this X-band technology for different types of ground applications,” Livnat said.

www.isrjournal.com...

Interesting ... India's DRDO's electronics division - LRDE has got its Transmit/Receiver Module's for Active Phased Array Antenna Patented

PATENTS GRANTED (in May 2005)

DMRL, Hyderabad :
• A Process for Preparation of Iron Aluminides.
• A Process for Preparation of Light Weight Ceramic Compounds Material for use in Bullet Proof Panel/Shelters.
• A Process for Preparation of Rubber Lining Material.
• A Process for Preparation of Titanium Matrix Composite.
• A process for the Production of Titanium Matrix Composites.
• A process for making Near Net Shaped Metal Matrix Composites.

LRDE, Bangalore :

• Transmit/Receiver Module for Active Phased Array Antenna.

www.drdo.com...

New Delhi: Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) proposes to develop indigenous Air Borne Early Warning and Control System.

A programme for design and development of indigenous Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) System costing Rs. 1800 crore was sanctioned by Government on Oct 06, 2004.

Preliminary designs of various subsystems of the AEW&C are completed and are under review by expert committees. The Airborne Early Warning and Control System is likely to be developed by April 2011.

This information was given by the Defence Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee in a written reply to Shri EG Sugavanam in the Parliament today.

www.india-defence.com...



[edit on 28-12-2005 by Stealth Spy]

Are you jumping to conclusions here stealth spy? I didn'r see anything about AESA mentioned in that AEW piece.

India is developing only one AEW&C platform and its said to be AESA. A simple Google search will tell you that the radar to be mounter on the ERJ-145 is AESA.

What about Australia they have a large Phased Array Program going on too.

Originally posted by Perverbial Eye In The Sky
What about Australia they have a large Phased Array Program going on too.

Not really Australia but Boeing. The 737 wedgetail AWACS program.

Yes that is correct. Australia does have an AESA radar programme in partnership with the USA. However the same is indended for naval application and not as airplane radars.

Here's some stuff on the Aussie AESA ...

Australia's Ministry of Defence reports that Australia and the United States have joined forces by signing a joint agreement to further develop Australian active phased array radar technology. The total development cost is estimated to be approximately $30 million over three years.

Defence Minister Robert Hill said both countries will share the development costs, technical expertise and benefits of the CEAFAR (3D) active phased array radar. This technology is being developed by ACT electronics company CEA Technologies as part of Australia's bid to make its new Anzac-Class frigates survivable against supersonic cruise missiles, but it also has other military and civil applications on land and sea.

Senator Hill congratulated CEA Technologies and the Australian Ministry of Defence's Defence Materiel Organisation for the work done to bring about this joint project, and noted that "The program will allow further development of the CEA radar technology for possible use in medium to long range air warfare and ballistic missile defence. The technology can also be applied to smaller ships and other Australian Defence Force air surveillance assets... [and] also has potential to be used in a range of US programs including the Littoral Combat Ship and other new ship programs, land and land mobile programs, as well as replacing legacy systems on some US ships... We have a very close working relationship with the US Navy on this project, with US staff embedded in the project team."

CEC works especially well with the AEGIS radar & combat system, which will be present in Australia's new SEA 4000 Air Warfare Destroyers. Long-range intercept capabilility via advanced versions of the Standard (SM-2 Block III+) missile which Australia is already buying is also helpful, given CEC's ability to have advance ships help to track and engage threats beyond the firing ship's radar range.

[edit on 2-1-2006 by Stealth Spy]

[edit on 2-1-2006 by Stealth Spy]

Check out the Official page of this new lightweight AESA radar >> www.selex-sas.com...

Vixen 500E is a compact, lightweight, active electronically scanned array radar for fighter and lead in fighter trainer aircraft. Building on 50 years of fire control radar experience Vixen 500E delivers greater performance and higher reliability than comparable mechanically scanned radars.


The same has been offered to South Korea for its A-50 [ Jane's ] (an attacker variant of its T-50 trainer) and to India for the LCA Tejas and the Mig-35. 2006 January issue of Force

The same company also makes the SEASPRAY series of AESA radars - namely the 6500E, 7000E and the 7500E in addition to the Eurofighters slotted array Captor radar. For more info > the official site > www.selex-sas.com...