MIRES radar for Pak FA

N

nevidimka

New Member
Work is underway on active phased-array radar

The fifth-generation fighter is to have radar with an active phased-array antenna. At the moment, only the U.S. has such technology, but Russia remains the global leader in the development and operation of passive phasedarray radars such as Zaslon for the MiG-31 interceptor and the Bars used on Su-30MKI fighters.

At the MAKS-2005 air show in August, Russia's NIIP (the prime contractor for the PAC FA radar), demonstrated a working model of its Epolet-A active phased-array radar for the first time. The antenna uses domesticallyproduced key components. According to its designers, the radiated power on each of its 68 elements reaches 10 Watts, compared to 5-8 Watts for foreign radars. The small-sized Epolet-A is considered to be an auxiliary antenna but it employs serial technologies developed by the key Russian electronics manufacturers: the St. Petersburg's Svetlana and Fryazino-based Istok companies. NIIP Deputy General Director Anatoly Sinani hopes flight test radar will be built in late 2006 or early 2007, as called for by a government program.

It was reported earlier that the Irbis radar, being developed for the Su-35 combat aircraft, will be standardized with MIRES radar to be installed in the PAC FA. In its early development phase, Irbis will feature a passive phased-array antenna similar to Bars, and will have mechanical drives for scanning at wide angles.



I'm not sure if this information is widely know, but I've never came accross them b4. I'm interested to know about the radiated power, does that mean the radar will be more powerfull in range?
 
S

swerve

Super Moderator
Could you give the source of this quote, please? It looks as if it's a few years old, BTW.

Whoever wrote it is a little carefree with the truth. For example -
The fifth-generation fighter is to have radar with an active phased-array antenna. At the moment, only the U.S. has such technology
Click to expand...
The second sentence isn't true however you interpret it, & wasn't in 2005.

The bit on power output of T/R modules also does not sound right. I've seen plenty of references to higher-power T/R modules than 5-8W outside Russia.
 
Todjaeger

Todjaeger

Potstirrer
nevidimka said:
Sorry about the missing link. But you are right, this article is old, but had some interesting details.

Regarding the second sentence, how is it not true? If its not in 2005 then when? Are you saying that it never took place? Because the article even have a picture of the radar.

http://www.ato.ru/eng/cis/archive/10-2005/defense/news1/?PHPSESSID=edd454556414ccd4d6e4151192a256c6
Click to expand...
Could be mistaken, but I believe the issue is the claim that only the US has active phased arrays. IIRC there are a number of countries with different active arrays of varying sizes. AFAIK the US is the only country (currently) with an in-production fighter equipped with AESA, but that should be changing soon.

-Cheers
 
S

swerve

Super Moderator
Todjaeger said:
Could be mistaken, but I believe the issue is the claim that only the US has active phased arrays. IIRC there are a number of countries with different active arrays of varying sizes.
Click to expand...
Even in 2005, when that quote appears to date from, several countries had built working AESA radars, & a few had deployed them operationally. Nowadays, there are a few more, with Italo-British (designed & built in Scotland by a firm now Italian-owned) airborne AESA radars actually being bought by the USCG, which maybe hints at how far from having a monopoly of the technology the USA has. But the several countries with operational AESA radars don't have fighter AESA radars - at least, not operational (a few countries have working, flying, fitted in fighters AESA radars, but not yet deployed operationally), except for the USA & one other.

Todjaeger said:
AFAIK the US is the only country (currently) with an in-production fighter equipped with AESA, but that should be changing soon.

-Cheers
Click to expand...
Everyone ignores Japan. :hitwall
 
N

nevidimka

New Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #7
What interest's me is the that they've got a working model albeit a downscaled version of an AESA radar back in 2005. So they should have got quite advanced by now in their AESA radar development, going into the PAK FA program.
BTW with a high power output from the T/R module, would it mean that a more powerfull radar in line with the BARS n IRBIS, but being LPI?
 
S

swerve

Super Moderator
nevidimka said:
What interest's me is the that they've got a working model albeit a downscaled version of an AESA radar back in 2005. So they should have got quite advanced by now in their AESA radar development, going into the PAK FA program.
BTW with a high power output from the T/R module, would it mean that a more powerfull radar in line with the BARS n IRBIS, but being LPI?
Click to expand...
Western European firms & Japan had downscaled working models in the 1990s.

And as I said, they don't have "high power output" T/R modules compared to western ones. Overall power output is no greater, & they're bigger & heavier, meaning the overall power output of an array of a given physical size will be less than a western equivalent.
 
N

nevidimka

New Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #9
swerve said:
Western European firms & Japan had downscaled working models in the 1990s.

And as I said, they don't have "high power output" T/R modules compared to western ones. Overall power output is no greater, & they're bigger & heavier, meaning the overall power output of an array of a given physical size will be less than a western equivalent.
Click to expand...
Its significant considering Russia was much slower in AESA development compared to western nation due to their lagging electronics industry.
Also how do you know that they are bigger n heavier?

Also i got this pic from another website, but its in russian. Its regarding their AESA radar. Can anyone translate?

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/263/d1hw8.jpg
 
A

arcivanov

New Member
nevidimka said:
Its significant considering Russia was much slower in AESA development compared to western nation due to their lagging electronics industry.
Also how do you know that they are bigger n heavier?
Click to expand...
The Soviet microchips are the biggest microchips in the world! (Soviet slogan).
Russia has and always had huge problems producing high-quality semiconductors, because at some point cybernetics, which drove microchip development, was banned as being "capitalist prostitute" (go figure). Basically Russia doesn't have factories that allow it to produce high quality Si and Si-derived substrates (uniform and clean) and without them there are no semiconductors.

The article you posted translates as follows:

"Scientific-Research Device-Manufacturing Tihomirov Institute, Inc" joined by "Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FGUP) Ryazan State Device Factory" for the first time display the fragments of the experimental samples of active phased arrays of X and L bands, created for radar complex of PAK FA, in the military aviation pavilion of the United Aviation Corporation.

AFAR under development are based on the modern Russian technologies and component base, including multifunctional ICs (MICs). For X-band MICs are based on heterostructures GaAs. That, combined with the know-how AFAR-building system solutions allowed to provide for the radiated power output of 10W per channel with efficiency higher than 30%. L-band AFAR are planned to be installed in the movable tips of the aircraft wing. Both AFARs implement electronic scanning in the angle space of 120deg and control of the shape of the beam in wide ranges to allow for implementation of effective radar functionality in the air-2-air and air-2-ground modes.

To be continued...
 
A

arcivanov

New Member
Continued... (I'm going to summarize this one)

Also for the first time the institute demonstrates experimental sample of passive FAR for Ibris-E that will be used on Su-35. FAR has electrohydrolic drive that allows to turn FAR +-60 deg azimuth-wise and +-120 deg bank-wise. However the distinctive advantage of Su-35 radar complex is it's detection ability of 350-400 km (220 - 250 miles).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top