Radar Technologies From India Change Battlefield Dynamics

India's public sector efforts at developing radars has been a success story that has been left unsung for long. Here is a compilation of what the defence R&D institutions of India have worked on so far

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Electronic sensors are key to battlefield dominance by armed forces, as information gathered about the enemy enables counter-measures and often, offensive action that change the course of a war. Radar is an electromagnetic sensor system used for detection, location tracking, imaging and classification of targets such as man-made objects like aircraft, ships, ground moving vehicles and natural environment including ground features and moving men.

It is an important sensor for the commanders' battle space awareness and for decision-making in a war scenario. Modern battle has transformed into network centric operations, with unified battlefields spread across multiple theatres of operation. With the advent of microelectronics, radio frequency management and unprecedented growth in processing power and computation, radar has transformed into a complex, advanced and intelligent sensor. Indian military, aspiring to be a global player, has been integrating emerging technologies to fine tune its strategies and tactics to integrate with global Armed Forces.

The battlefield scenario is continuously changing with sophisticated emerging technologies and therefore the operational environment of modern radar systems is becoming increasingly more complex. Stealthy, long-range, high altitude, high speed, manoeuvering targets, intense jamming environment, large fluctuations of radar cross-section with small change of aspect angle of targets, pose challenges for efficient detection, tracking, and measuring are all combined to ensure complexity of the task.