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RADAR, EO/IR, NIGHT VISION AND SURVEILLANCE UPDATE

September 11, 2018 by

Web Page sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems

www.blighter.com

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07 Aug 18. RADA Electronic Industries Ltd. A leader in the development, production and sale of tactical land radar for force and border protection – announced the receipt of $4m in radar orders in the second quarter.  The orders were for RADA’s software-defined radars which will be used in today’s most advanced defense applications. These include active protection systems (APS) for armored vehicles, counter rocket artillery and mortar (C-RAM), counter UAV and short range air defense (SHORAD). A third of these orders were follow-on-sales from existing customers and the remainder was from new and highly strategic customers. These new customers are leading defense organizations and represent initial sales from which RADA expects further follow-on orders in the future. RADA Electronic Industries Ltd. has announced the receipt of $4m in radar orders in the second quarter, including new sales penetrations of highly strategic defence customers. The orders were for RADA’s software-defined radars which will be used in today’s most advanced defence applications. These include active protection systems (APS) for armoured vehicles, counter rocket artillery and mortar (C-RAM), counter UAV and short range air defence (SHORAD). A third of these orders were follow-on-sales from existing customers and the remainder was from new and highly strategic customers. These new customers are leading defence organisations and represent initial sales from which RADA expects further follow-on orders in the future.

Dov Sella, RADA’s CEO, commented, “Our leading radar technologies are gaining increased traction and these recent orders are the initial fruits of our newly established presence in the United States along with our global business development efforts. We expect the sales of our radars to accelerate in the coming quarters as the market becomes increasingly aware of the benefits of our products in providing solutions for emerging needs.”

02 Aug 18. Bird‘s Eye View for Combat Vehicle Crews. Every computer player knows that in racing or combat simulations the bird‘s eye view is the favoured view, as it offers a much better overview than the cockpit perspective, for example. Commanders of combat vehicles have also recognised this for several decades and know that the view “over the hatch” is significantly better for situational awareness than the limited view “under cover”. Many commanders have already paid with their lives for this view “over the hatch”, which is why the armed forces have always tried to increase the situational awareness of vehicle crews around the vehicle without having to give up armour protection. Sophisticated optronic systems solved some of the problems caused by restricted fields of view, but were still limited to the vehicle‘s visual ground perspective. With the arrival of small and micro drones on the battlefield, concept definers of the armed forces and designers in the industry asked themselves whether such UAS could be used to provide an armoured vehicle crew with additional fields of view and thus improve their situational awareness of the immediate vicinity.

What sounds simple and could be partially implemented in limited test environments failed in practise due to several technical hurdles. Such a system only achieves its real benefit when it is integrated with the combat vehicle. As a result, it must be able to take off and land from vehicles on the move. It must also be able to operate reliably in a “contested battlefield environment”. These two points, among others, constitute the main challenge. How can a drone be properly controlled if a reliable connection to the drone cannot be established, as powerful onboard radios and jammers or enemy electronic warfare efforts constantly interrupt the connection? In addition, the drones currently in use need a stable and levelled platform for take-off and landing. Both cannot be provided by of a combat vehicle on the move. Therefore, the implementation of such concepts took time.

When Denmark opted for the PIRANHA V from General Dynamics European Land Systems-Mowag (GDELS) in Switzerland as part of the modernisation of its own armed forces, comprehensive participation of Danish industry was agreed. One of the results is the cooperation of GDELS with the Danish drone specialist Sky Watch and Reseiwe A/S, an expert for resilient wireless data communication.

According to Michael Messerschmidt, Chief Business Development Officer of Sky Watch, the vision of a vehicle-integrated drone will soon become reality. Sky Watch aims to offer the solution presented at Eurosatory 2018 as a market-ready product as early as in 2019. According to Messerschmidt‘s specifications, the vehicle crew will also be able to launch, operate and land the UAV while being on the move. The drone will be integrated with the vehicle‘s battle management system (BMS). This enables the exchange of information between the drone and the vehicle crew. Deployment scenarios could include missions for the drone to explore the way ahead or give the driver and commander an overview from a bird‘s perspective. Since the loiter time of Multicopter drones is currently around 30 minutes due to the battery capacities, either several drones of a single vehicle or several drones distributed over several vehicles of a convoy can alternately provide extended situational awareness. The drone is controlled by an operator or semi-autonomously, for example by pre-programmed route patterns. In stressful situations, when the operator has to concentrate on other tasks, the drone automatically follows the vehicle using the “follow” function.

GDELS is responsible for the physical integration of the drone with the combat vehicle and the BMS. Sky-Watch contributes know-how in the production of military drones that are able to operate reliably even in harsh environmental conditions and dynamic battlefield situations. Reseiwe’s patented ReWiLink technology is used to reliably establish and maintain a communication link between the vehicle and the drone. The drone control is based on Wi-Fi communication. In sub-optimal environments, this digital form of communication suffers from abrupt disconnections, so that data can either flow completely or not at all. ReWiLink is able to stabilise the connection and enable a data flow even in “extreme” situations. Similar to analogue communication, the quality of the connection decreases, but it does not break off. The bottom line is that the connection quality is improved by a factor of two. The implementation is purely software-based, a change of the hardware is not necessary. With the drone and the patented link to the vehicle, the Danish-Swiss trio could finally fulfil the desire of all vehicle commanders: To provide a bird‘s eye view to improve the situational awareness of the soldiers on the ground. The view “over the hatch” would thus be history, the view “around the corner” reality. (Source: ESD Spotlight)

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Blighter® Surveillance Systems (BSS) is a UK-based electronic-scanning radar and sensor solution provider delivering an integrated multi-sensor package to systems integrators comprising the Blighter electronic-scanning radars, cameras, thermal imagers, trackers and software solutions. Blighter radars combine patented solid-state Passive Electronic Scanning Array (PESA) technology with advanced Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) and Doppler processing to provide a robust and persistent surveillance capability. Blighter Surveillance Systems is a Plextek Group company, a leading British design house and technology innovator, and is based at Great Chesterford on the outskirts of Cambridge, England.

The Blighter electronic-scanning (e-scan) FMCW Doppler ground surveillance radar (GSR) is a unique patented product that provides robust intruder detection capabilities under the most difficult terrain and weather conditions. With no mechanical moving parts and 100% solid-state design, the Blighter radar family of products are extremely reliable and robust and require no routine maintenance for five years. The Blighter radar can operate over land and water rapidly searching for intruders as small a crawling person, kayaks and even low-flying objects. In its long-range modes the Blighter radar can rapidly scan an area in excess of 3,000 km² to ensure that intruders are detected, identified and intercepted before they reach critical areas.

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