Saab offers DRDO underground radar

[CONNAN]

http://www.stratpost.com/saab-offers-drdo-underground-radar

Saab has offered its radar, CARABAS, to the Defense Research and Development Organization’s (DRDO) Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) for evaluation. The radar can penetrate densely-forested areas and detect mines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) buried underground.

The DRDO had been shopping around for a radar that could provide the capability for the detection of threats in heavily-forested and remote areas affected by insurgencies and has selected the CARABAS to explore further possibilities. A radar with such capabilities would be useful in detecting threats in areas where security forces have to operate, patrolling roads and tracks under the canopy of dense foliage and surrounding forests, in difficult terrain.

CARABAS is a Very High Frequency (VHF) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) that is mounted on aircraft to scan a target area for threats. The radar, which weighs 35 kilograms, can be fitted on rotary wing as well as tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

On helicopters and UAVs, the antennas, which are made of Kevlar/carbon, retract when on the ground and unfold in the air. The antenna consists of two High Band dipoles, emitting waves of 140 to 360 MegaHertz (MHz) attached to two Low Band dipoles, with emissions between 25 to 85 Mega Hertz.

The system, when attached to an aircraft, manned or unmanned, scans the area for anomalies. Operational areas have to be regularly scanned for this radar to be most effective, as it detects these anomalies in terms of changes in the area being scanned. Such changes could include the presence of humans, vehicles and even metallic objects like mines and IEDs buried underground.

It’s VHF radar is able to penetrate foliage as well as ground surface because of its low wavelength and can detect ‘humans, mines and IEDs’. Saab says the radar can detect underground objects down to a depth of 3.4 meters (more than 11 feet) in wet soil, 6 meters (almost 20 feet) in dry soil and 26 meters (around 85 feet) in sand. This is when the radar waves hit the ground at the Brewster Angle, which optimizes their transmission by enabling them to penetrate the ground with no reflection.

With a power consumption of 100 Watts, the radar in foliage mode is capable of surveying 270 square kilometers from a standoff distance of 6 kilometers and an altitude of 2000 meters, enabling it to detect vehicles while emitting Low Band VHF waves. In the same mode, it can also detect human presence, emitting High Band VHF radiation, standing off from a distance of 3 kilometers and is able to survey an area of 45 square kilometers.

In subsurface mode, standing off from a distance of between 150 meters to 3 kilometers, the radar can survey an area of between 2.7 square kilometers to 45 square kilometers from an altitude of 30 meters to 700 meters and can detect buried mines and IEDs.

While the helicopter-mounted radar can detect to an accuracy of between half a meter to 2 meters, depending on the frequency, the UAV-mounted radar can detect concealed human and vehicular presence as well as subsurface metallic objects that have dimensions of less than 3000 square centimeters.

Versions of this airborne radar, already in operation in the Swedish Air Force, where it is configured for deployment on fixed wing aircraft, were first devised in 1990, with a Drag Antenna layout and then upgraded in 1997, to enable a Pushboom Antenna configuration.

Inderjit Sial, Saab’s Director – Industrial Cooperation, says the radar is currently undergoing tests on rotary wing aircraft in Sweden. DRDO officials are also expected to visit the country in August to witness the system in operation at a test range, as well as examine the source code of the system, to look for ways to configure it to Indian requirements. Towards the end of this year, the CARABAS will be available for configuration onto a Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) in India and be tested in a forested, remote area.

Sial also says the company is willing to manufacture the radar in India, if it is ultimately selected by the DRDO.

 

[CONNAN]

 

[CONNAN]

SAAB CARABAS RADAR

Carabas, the ground-mapping ultra wide band VHF synthetic apertureradar system is to be test flown early next year in a newconfiguration, according to the programme leader, the SwedishNational Defence Research Association (FOA).Its two distinctive antennas are to be redesigned and fitted to thefront end of a business jet for further flight testing. If theprogramme is a success.

Carabas operates in a waveband well below - around 100 times - whatis conventional for a surveillance radar in the 20-90 MHz VHFwaveband. The wavelength ignores vegetation but reflects man-madeobjects. "It really highlights them," said an FOA official.Foliage penetration and the 1 km{2}/sec wide-area coverage areconsidered the key features of the system. While microwave systemsmay have good classification qualities, the VHF system allows morereliable surveillance and change detection through multiple passes,said the FOA.The biggest drawback in producing the system is the length of theantennas, which tend to interfere with aircraft structure. One novelsolution to this may be to use the antennas as part of an aircraftstructure - FOA displayed an idea to have the antennas form part ofan unmanned air vehicle, which it believes is the natural platform for military use.

 

[calcutta]

India is deploying cutting-edge technology to defeat a simple insurgent weapon that J&K militants and Naxals are using to lethal effect: the Improvised Explosive Device, or IED. Swedish company Saab has offered to partner India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation in fitting Saab’s CARABAS radar on India’s Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), which would allow the scanning of wide swathes of territory to detect IEDs well before they can be exploded.

Naxal IEDs–explosives that are detonated with a timer, or with signals from a mobile phone, to blow up jawans or vehicles– are blamed for over 60 per cent of all casualties caused by the group. In only the most recent example, on May 17, a Naxal IED, buried inside a metalled road, blew up a civilian bus in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, killing 36 people, including 12 Special Police Officers. Any movement of security forces in Naxal areas must be preceded by a painstaking manual search for IEDs. Many casualties have been caused during these search operations.

In the new system being evaluated, a Saab CARABAS radar, fitted in a Dhruv helicopter, does an aerial scan of the area in which security forces will be operating. The CARABAS radar is specially designed to detect metallic components of an IED, even when it is buried 5-6 metres below the ground. A computer quickly compares the image of each flight with the images of the previous flight over that area; any new metallic objects are highlighted, and their exact location mapped. Armed with that information, a bomb disposal team is sent to defuse the IED harmlessly.

Best of all, the exceptionally low frequency waves from the CARABAS radar ignore vegetation, reflecting only off man-made objects. This is especially useful in jungle terrain, where the dense foliage provides both visual and electro-magnetic cover. Naxal IED tactics involve burying IEDs several feet deep, sometimes under tarmac roads; such a system would detect even the deep-buried IEDs, which conventional, hand-held scanners, and even sniffer dogs, often cannot pick up.

“We have provided a radar at the request of the DRDO,” says Inderjit Sial, the India head of Saab International India AB. “The DRDO will integrate it on the Dhruv ALH and then evaluation trials will be conducted. There is also a lighter version of the radar which can be flown on a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle).”

The helicopter-mounted CARABAS radar weighs about 150 kg. The smaller version of the radar, which has been developed for UAVs, weighs just 50 kg.

Saab believes this surveillance platform has a very high potential in India. The company has indicated that, if India chooses to deploy the CARABAS/Dhruv platform, Saab would set up its global manufacturing hub for the radar in India.

The DRDO is carefully evaluating Saab’s offer. Confirming that it is evaluating a foreign foliage penetration radar, the spokesperson stated, “We are seeking foreign collaboration in this field. Talks are actively on? but we have not yet made a final decision.”

A key challenge the DRDO faces in integrating the CARABAS low-frequency radar on a UAV, or on the Dhruv helicopter, is the unusual shape and large size of the radar antennae, which look like two long poles. A place on the flying platform will have to be found for these antennae.

 

[gowthamraj]

We need it very quickly but secretly

 

[CONNAN]

We need it very quickly but secretly

not a secret any more buddy

 

[jha]

every country is searching a solution to IED..

 

[CONNAN]

every country is searching a solution to IED..

lets hope we got a solution this time