Indian Army To Use Home-Made Weapon Locating Radars

[CONNAN]

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) of the ministry of defence has cleared the acquisition of 30 weapon locating radars – Swati – from Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) at a total cost of Rs 1,605 crores ($256 million).

These radars will be used by the artillery wing of the Indian army. Swati, the radar was developed as a coherent, electronically scanned C-Band pulse doppler radar. The radar automatically locates hostile artillery, mortars and rocket launchers and tracks friendly fire to locate the impact point of friendly artillery fire to issue necessary corrections.

The range for the radar while tracking gun shells is more than 20 kms and for rockets, about 30 kms.

For long, the army had been using the American gun locating radars bought during the Kargil War. The DRDO and Bharat Electronics took upon the task of developing an indigenous radar. Their first was Rajendra. Swati is their latest.

There is an interesting story behind the discovery of how the idea of the first gun locating radar was developed. Apparently, the DRDO scientists were testing the trajectory of the missiles at Chandipur, when they found their tracking radars could pick up artillery guns booming at a nearby army firing range. That was how Rajendra was born.
Indian Army To Use Home-Made Weapon Locating Radars

 

[Ronin]

How does a 20 km detection range make any sense if many shells have a range of nearly 40 km

 

[Goenitz]

How does a 20 km detection range make any sense if many shells have a range of nearly 40 km

but artillery don't know where radar is... anyway it has to get close to enemy battery which is stupidity

 

[CONNAN]

How does a 20 km detection range make any sense if many shells have a range of nearly 40 km

Weapon Locating Radars (WLR) are primarily used to detect and locate enemy Artillery units by tracking the trajectory of incoming rounds. mostly enemies approximate location is given followed by massive bombardment as counter battery but there are other units available with 5o km range even the AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder Radar has same range and chineese SLC- 2 claimed to have range For artillery—35 km For rockets—50 km

 

[Hindustani78]

Weapon Locating Radar

The advent of long range weapon systems and mechanization of land forces have extended the area of operations much beyond the visual range. Deployment of electronic surveillance devices in the battlefield will serve as a force multiplier to enhance the combat potential of our forces and optimize the effectiveness of our weapon systems.
Weapon Locating Radar (WLR) has been primarily designed to locate hostile guns, mortars and rockets causing interference to the progress of our operation. WLR, in its secondary role, can track and observe the fall of shot from own weapons to provide corrections to own fire. A large quantum or artillery deployed on a wide front, coupled with movement of aerial objects, weather and ground clutter, presents a high density returned conflicting signals on the radar screen. These conflicting signals have to be processed in the real time and extract required information for gunners to complete their mission successfully.

Detection, location and tracking of the requisite targets is handled by the advanced algorithms and state-of-the-art hardware. The ability to locate enemy weapons from its round and transmit the data of the required target to the counter fire elements for retaliatory strike before the target is redeployed is the key feature of the radar.

The Radar uses passive phased array with excellent side lobe levels. Radar system mounted on the TATRA vehicle is built to operate in all terrain and weather conditions.

WLR, a joint development project undertaken by radar house LRDE (DRDO) and Bharat Electronics, is developed to fulfill the long felt need of the Indian Army.

 

[kakathiya]

Radar Designation Type/Purpose User Status Comments
3D CAR Group Surveillance Radar for Akash; 360 degree; 3D; S band; 150km range (small fighter class targets);

Planar Antenna - phased in elevation; 3 vehicles IAF/IA Production
8 Squadrons for AF would require 8 radars; Army has ordered 2 regiments with six batteries each - at least 2 CAR will be required. Overall numbers of 3D CAR including Rohini & TCR may be 100.


Rohini
Surveillance radar derived from 3D CAR IAF Production 37 ordered in total; Second tranche ordered after excellent results in 2001-02 during the Parakram standoff, when 3D CAR could detect even small RCS UAVs at long distance

Revathi
Surveillance radar derived from 3D CAR for naval use; stabilization for antenna developed by L&T; extra capability to detect sea skimming missiles against clutter Indian Navy Production 2 ordered for initial ASW ships

Tactical Control Radar
Compact version with 2 vehicle footprint, non mast antenna, developed for Army; 90 km range as versus 150km for full scale version Indian Army Production ~28

Rajendra MFPAR (Multi Function Phased Array Radar)
PESA radar with 80 km range against small fighter targets; C-Band, 360 degree swivel capability; radar on T-72 tank (BLT-2 variant) for Army), trailer for AF; Surveillance, Fire control, IFF functions; 2 Vehicles - one radar, second - Battery Control Center which is the Radar Control Unit and also controls an Akash battery Indian Army/AF Production 28

Swathi Weapon Locating Radar
Rajendra derivative for counter battery fire; range of upto 40 km for large artillery shells (155mm); 2 vehicles, radar and data vehicle; power vehicle Indian Army Production 28 Cleared intensive trials in 2010-11; orders placed in 2011-12; long in development, had to face hurdles after components were sanctioned post 1999 nuclear tests. Rajendra program developed these systems locally.

Aslesha
Ashwin
Bharani
BFSR-SR
MPR - Arudhra
LLTR- Ashwini
LRTR-1
LRTR-2
MFCR
AEW&C AESA Project India
MMR
MMR-AESA
MPAR (SV-2000)
MPAR (XV-2004)

 

[Capt.Popeye]

How does a 20 km detection range make any sense if many shells have a range of nearly 40 km

How does that matter? They track the trajectory of the shells and missiles, then work backwards and locate the weapon.

 

[Echo_419]

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) of the ministry of defence has cleared the acquisition of 30 weapon locating radars – Swati – from Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) at a total cost of Rs 1,605 crores ($256 million).

These radars will be used by the artillery wing of the Indian army. Swati, the radar was developed as a coherent, electronically scanned C-Band pulse doppler radar. The radar automatically locates hostile artillery, mortars and rocket launchers and tracks friendly fire to locate the impact point of friendly artillery fire to issue necessary corrections.

The range for the radar while tracking gun shells is more than 20 kms and for rockets, about 30 kms.

For long, the army had been using the American gun locating radars bought during the Kargil War. The DRDO and Bharat Electronics took upon the task of developing an indigenous radar. Their first was Rajendra. Swati is their latest.

There is an interesting story behind the discovery of how the idea of the first gun locating radar was developed. Apparently, the DRDO scientists were testing the trajectory of the missiles at Chandipur, when they found their tracking radars could pick up artillery guns booming at a nearby army firing range. That was how Rajendra was born.
Indian Army To Use Home-Made Weapon Locating Radars

Great news