PDX Independent Defense Website
Archive for the ‘Remote Sensing’ Category.
30-Sep-2008 15:42 EDT
The E-3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft is based on a Boeing 707 airframe. It is the world’s most widely used large-jet AWACS platform, in service with the USAF, Britain, France, NATO, and Saudi Arabia. Over the years, the world’s E-3 fleet has required improvements to keep its radars and electronics current with advances in technology.
by Ravi Sharma
Sunday, Apr 20, 2008
India to sign USD300 million deal for three advanced surveillance aircraft. AEW&CS programme may be operational in five years.
DRDO laboratories involved in it
Bangalore: With the question whether the Air Force is still serious about the Rs 1,800-crore indigenous Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&CS) programme settled, India is to sign a deal with the Brazilian aerospace firm Embraer for three EMB 145 intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft.
The three aircraft together are expected to cost around $300 million.
Based on Embraer’s regional ERJ 145, the jets, which are one of the world’s most advanced and powerful remote sensing aircraft, will be used by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for its AEW&CS programme, serving as the ‘eye in the sky’ for the Air Force, detecting and intercepting enemy planes and missiles which are in flight, and far away.
The AEW&CS, working along with the three Phalcon Airborne Early Warning, Command and Control (AEWC&C) systems that the Air Force is acquiring from Israel, will become a force multiplier, filling gaps in the coverage provided by ground radars.
Defence Ministry sources told The Hindu that the contract would be signed later this month and aircraft delivery would begin in three years.
The DRDO expects that the AEW&CS programme will be operationalised in around five years
The AEW&CS programme involves using a flying platform and mounting sensors (radars) that look far and deep, providing C2BM (command and control, battle management) functions with data link for both tactical and defence forces.
While in the AEWC&C the lofted sensors transmit information to a ground-based command and control centre, in the larger and more expensive Airborne Warning and Control System like the AEWC&C, the sensors disseminate information to a command centre that is part of the flying platform.
Under the agreement, Embraer will not only supply the jets, which have several hours of endurance and in-flight refuelling, but also mount the radar on the EMB-145 fuselage, ensuring that changes in the aircraft’s technical specifications such as its aero dynamism and handling after mounting get recertified in the altered configuration. The Brazilians will also be responsible for the aircraft’s overall endurance with payload (radar) and a modification of the mounts that will receive the radar.
A number of DRDO laboratories are involved in the AEW&CS programme. The Defence Electronics Application Laboratory is involved with the primary sensors, communication systems and data link; the Defence Avionics Research Establishment with the self-protection systems, electronic warfare suites and communication support systems; and the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory with counter-support measures.
While the heart of the radar is from the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment, the responsibility for the overall integration of the systems, mission computer, display and data handling is that of the Bangalore-based Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS).
The CABS has tied up with the Hyderabad-based private firm Astra Microwave Products for development of trans-receiver multimodules.
The DRDO, which initiated talks with companies including Larsen and Toubro, Tata Power and Bharat Electronics with the idea of signing on a partner from the development stage itself for maintenance, upgrading and for taking care of obsolescence of the complicated radar system, has abandoned the idea. The hurdles: not being able to take manpower from outside the DRDO to work on the project, and the levels of commitment and materials.
Follow-up to ‘Airawat’
The AEW&CS programme is a follow-up to the Rs 60.80-crore ‘Project Guardian’ (later called ‘Airawat’), which ended in disaster in January 1999 after the HS-748 aircraft, on which the radar was mounted, crashed near Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu. All eight personnel on board, including four scientists who were critical to the project, were killed.
By vivek raghuvanshi
Published: 14 Apr 12:08 EDT (08:08 GMT)
NEW DELHI - The Indian Air Force wants to buy unspecified numbers of Phalcon Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft from Israel in addition to the three already contracted in 2004 for $370 million each.
The air force request is near finalization at the Indian Ministry of Defence, sources said, but the price of the additional AWACS planes is still to be negotiated.
The deal already in place with Israel includes Israeli Phalcon radar mounted on three Russian Il-76 aircraft to be used as an AWACS by the Indian Air Force.
The Phalcon phased-array radar picks up a variety of signals from enemy aircraft operating up to 400 kilometers away, allowing the operator’s screen to be updated every two to 14 seconds.
The air force wants additional AWACS to become part of its Aerospace Command, under development by the Indian defense forces.
The first three Phalcon AWACS aircraft will be delivered to India in September. Once operational, the AWACS would be part of a larger strategic early-warning system, comprising ground-, sea-based and airborne radars and sensors - mounted on manned aircraft, balloons, unmanned aerial vehicles and possibly unmanned submarines - to track aircraft and missiles.
06-Apr-2008 16:20 EDT
Digitization and smaller electronics affect the battlefield in a number of ways. In the area of air defense, it has become possible to make small radars quite powerful, while also connecting them in networks that can provide a combined picture of a broader area. The result is a system that makes short-range assets like shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles far more effective. If careful attention is paid to integration issues, these systems can serve singly as quickly-deployable initial protection for key sites, be combined to extend coverage over a local region, or serve as a form of local distributed backup to guide larger and more advanced missiles if higher-echelon radars are knocked out.
Their usefulness even extends beyond enemy forces. One of the toughest problems involved in coalition warfare is ensuring that simple misunderstandings or lack of a common picture doesn’t lead to “friendly fire” tragedies. A deployable local air control system can minimize those odds.
Britain’s Land Environment Air Picture Provision (LEAPP) program is GBP 100 million contract with Lockheed Martin UK INSYS designed to address these needs, and provide ground forces with a detailed local picture of activity in the air…
April 3/08: Saab announces a GBP 30 million (about $60 million) contract from Lockheed Martin UK INSYS for 5 Giraffe AMB radars, as part of the UK MoD’s LEAPP program. The contract is worth approximately GBP 30 million.
Saab’s Giraffe AMB is a truck-mounted 3-D “agile multiple beam” surveillance radar that is housed in a single 6 m/ 20 ft ISO container with splinter and NBC protection, mounted on a cross-country truck. Its name comes from the Agile Multi-Beam (AMB) 3-D radar that sits on an extensible “neck,” in order to give it broader surveillance coverage with a range of 20-40 km/ 12-24 miles. The system takes about 10 minutes to set up and activate, and 3 minutes for take-down. Setup can happen at leisure, after all, while take-down may involve enemy aircraft who are moving into anti-radiation missile range.
Unlike conventional 3D search radar that rely on elevation scanning technology, the GIRAFFE AMB covers a large elevation range simultaneously by using one wide beam for transmission and multiple digitally shaped narrow beams for reception. The radar also has uses beyond air surveillance, including emergency military air traffic control, and even coastal surveillance despite the innate “clutter” produced by the sea. If integrated with ARTHUR software, it adds the ability to track “ballistic weapons” like rockets, mortars, and artillery shells, and figure out both their point of impact and their point of origin.
April 2/08: Lockheed Martin UK-led Team Athena signs a GBP 100 million (about $200 million) contract with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the Land Environment Air Picture Provision (LEAPP) program,. The contract award comes after a 2-year assessment phase, during which the Lockheed Martin team provided a version of LEAPP to the MoD as an Urgent Operational Requirement. The contract is expected to sustain up to 100 jobs in Ampthill, Bedfordshire and at other sites in the UK, and the LEAPP system is expected to enter service in 2012. Lockheed Martin UK release | UK MoD.
Team Athena is led by Lockheed Martin UK, and includes:
Additional Readings
by Max Jarman - Apr. 2, 2008 05:59 PM
The Arizona Republic
Navy submarines will be able to talk to Air Force jets and Army tanks more easily, thanks to work being performed in Scottsdale at General Dynamics C4 Systems.
The General Dynamics Corp. subsidiary is a key participant in a $766 million contract awarded Saturday to Lockheed Martin Corp. to provide tactical communications and network systems to the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and other users.
The so-called joint tactical radio systems will link more than 160 platform types, including fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, submarines and surface ships, and fixed-base stations worldwide.
General Dynamics C4 Systems will lead the development and integration of the maritime and fixed-site communication systems.