PART

X
Representative
Radar Systems
I

n this section we briefly describe the essential features and characteristics of a number of operational exemplar systems. In these
increasingly security conscious and commercially competitive times
information openly available about advanced radar systems is relatively
sparse. Our descriptions are mainly compiled from knowledge distilled from the research literature and from open sources, especially, of
course the Internet. Many of the concepts introduced throughout this
book are embodied in these systems and we hope that you will find
this useful context. If you come across more detailed open source of
information, do please send them to us, and well attempt to incorporate updates into subsequent editions. The chapters comprising this
section are:

49. Airborne Early Warning and Control . . . . . .699

50. Reconnaissance & Surveillance . . . . . . . . . . . 703
51. Space Based Radar Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707
52. Fighter & Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713

Boeing E-3 SENTRY (1977)

With its distinctive rotating radome, the E-3 Sentry (more
commonly known as AWACS) is based on the Boeing 707 airframe
and is used to provide commanders with information to gain and
maintain control of a battle. It uses the Westinghouse AN/APY-1 and
AN/APY-2 passive electronically scanned array radar system which
can provide surveillance over land and water. The information
collected by the radar system can be sent to multiple command
and control centers and includes positioning and tracking
information of enemy and friendly aircraft and naval vessels.

49

Airborne Early
Warning and
Control
A

AEW Sea King

irborne early warning and control (AEW&C) comprises

two main components:

i. An airborne radar system: This is used to detect aircraft,

ships and vehicles at long ranges
ii. A command and control system: This directs fighter and
attack aircraft strikes.
The command and control function has a close similarity to the
role performed by an Air Traffic Controller, managing the local
air traffic to ensure mission success. AEW&C aircraft are used for
both defensive and offensive air operations having the advantage of high mobility together with an advanced and extremely
capable radar system. Together the air platform and radar system form a combination able to direct fighters to their target
locations and direct counterattacks on enemy forces. The great
advantage of operating at high altitudes is the very large ranges
at which targets can be detected. For example, the United States
Navy uses AEW&C aircraft from its large aircraft carriers to protect their on-board Command Information Centers (CICs).
AEW&C is also known by the terms airborne early warning
(AEW) and airborne warning and control system (AWACS).
Modern AEW&C pulse Doppler radar systems have detection
ranges of the order of 400 km. This means they can detect
surface-to-air missiles sufficiently early to deploy countermeasures. A single AEW&C aircraft flying at an altitude of 9 km
can cover an area of greater than 312,000 km2. Indeed, three
such aircraft in overlapping orbits can cover an area the size
of central Europe. In air-to-air combat, AEW&C systems can
cooperate with friendly aircraft via communication links. This
699

700

PART X: Representative Radar Systems

can effectively extend the sensor range of friendly aircraft and

give them added stealth, since they no longer need to switch
on their own radar systems.

Figure 49-1. E-3 SENTRY system.

Figures 49-1, 49-2 and 49-3 show some examples of AEW&C

systems currently in operational use. The USAF E-3 Sentry and
the Japanese Self Defense Force E-767 AWACS both exhibit
a distinctive circular radome carried above the aircraft fuselage in which the antenna is housed. This placement ensures
maximum all-round line of sight for the radar system giving
the best possible coverage. The Swedish Air Force Saab 340
AEW&C system shows an elongated radome structure housing
a side-looking antenna. Although the radar system has a more
restricted range of azimuth viewing angles, the agility of the
aircraft still enables a comprehensive picture of aircraft activity to be produced. Other types of AEW&C system include the
UK Royal Navys Sea King AEW series that dates back to an
urgent operational requirement in 1982, and is still in operational service.

49.1 E-3 AWACS Radar

The APY-2 is the radar for the US Air Force E-3 Airborne Early
Warning and Control System (AWACS). From an operational
altitude of 9 km the radar is able to detect low altitude and seasurface targets out to 400 km, co-altitude targets out to 800 km,
and targets beyond the horizon at still greater ranges. Figure
49-4 indicates the air and surface coverage zones in which
AWACs can detect targets.

Figure 49-2. The Japanese E-767 AWACS flying over Mount Fuji.

Implementation. The radar frequency is in S-band (nominally 3 GHz). The radar employs an 8 m by 1.5 m planararray antenna, steered electronically in elevation, and housed
in a rotating radome (rotodome) that scans at a rate of 6 rpm
(Fig. 49-5).
Besides phase shifters for elevation beam steering, phase shifters are also provided for offsetting the beam for reception
during elevation scanning, to compensate for the time delay

Ground Radar Coverage

AWACS
10 000 m

AWACS Radar Surveillance Volume

400 km

400 km

Figure 49-3. The Swedish Air Force Saab 340 AEW&C system has a
fixed side-looking antenna on top of the fuselage.

Seen Only by AWACS

Limit of AWACS
Surface Target
Coverage

Limit of AWACS
Coaltitude
Target Coverage

Figure 49-4. From an altitude of 9 km, AWACS can detect sea and lowaltitude targets out to 400 km and co-altitude targets out to 800 km.

CHAPTER 49: Airborne Early Warning and Control

701

between transmission of a pulse and reception of returns from

long-range targets. The antenna has an extremely narrow azimuth beamwidth and its excitation uses an amplitude taper to
reduce the sidelobe level sidelobe.
The transmitter chain consists of a solid-state pre-driver
(whose output power is increased as a function of antenna
elevation angle) a traveling wave tube (TWT) intermediate power amplifier, and a high-power pulse-modulated
dual-klystron amplifier. For reliability, dual redundancy is
employed throughout.
Following an extremely low-noise (HEMT) receiver preamplifier, two separate receive channels are provided: one for
range-gated pulse-Doppler operation and another for simple
pulsed-radar operation.
Digital processing is performed by a signal processor, employing 534 pipeline gate arrays operating at 20 MHz and a data
processor, employing four reduced instruction set computing
(RISC) central processing units (CPUs).
Modes of Operation. The radar has four primary modes of
operation:
High-PRF pulse-Doppler range-while-search, for detecting
targets in ground clutter;
High-PRF pulse-Doppler range-while-search, plus elevation
scanning for additional elevation coverage and measurement of target elevation angles;
Low-PRF pulsed radar search with pulse compression, for
detecting targets at long ranges beyond-the-horizon, where
clutter is not a problem;
Low-PRF pulsed radar search for detecting surface ships,
featuring extreme pulse compression and adaptive processing that adjusts for variations in sea clutter and blanks land
returns on the basis of stored maps.
These modes can be interleaved to provide either all-altitude
long-range aircraft detection or both aircraft and ship detection.
A passive mode for detecting ECM sources is also provided.
Each 360 azimuth scan can be divided into up to 32 different
sectors, in each of which a different operating mode and different conditions can be assigned or changed from scan to scan.

Figure 49-5. The AWACS antenna consists of a stacked array of

28 slotted waveguides, plus 28 reciprocal ferrite elevation-beamsteering phase shifters and 28 low-power nonreciprocal beam
offset phase shifters.