Thales Flycatcher Mk2 air defence fire control radar
Thales, which is a leading producer of advanced air defence systems, has been partnering with defence forces across the globe with a view to offer optimum on-ground protection and contribute more effective and efficient operations. One of the key products in this space is the Flycatcher Mk2, an air defence fire control radar for operations in any theatre, against an array of threats. This system is equipped with sophisticated 4D multi-beam surveillance radar, which combines high detection probability with low false alarm rate. The surveillance and track radars are coaxially constructed in the Flycatcher Mk2, since this is the best way to ensure a quick and unambiguous hand-over from surveillance to track radar. The Flycatcher Mk2 is capable of providing not only weapon control for air defence guns, but also target information for man portable air defence systems (MANPADS) in the vicinity of the radar.
Fire controlled gun and MANPADS air defences are the last line of protection to ensure the survivability of high value assets. Since the essence of radar detection is line of sight, the positioning of air defence radars defines quality of the air defence, which also means that the radar of an air defence system is the most difficult component to hide from enemy reconnaissance. The larger the variety and number of radars required, the easier it becomes for an enemy to estimate air defence capability and to plan their attack strategy. Often the presence of certain radar systems indicates the weapon type being used for air defence, while intelligence information leads to more dedicated attack profiles, using the weak spot in air defence and reducing the survivability of the high value assets protected.
The Flycatcher Mk2 has co-located surveillance and track radar, which provides an effective manner to prevent errors in target handover and also minimises the number of radar locations required to protect a given area. The Flycatcher Mk2 design has been focused on minimising the detection and engagement time of targets appearing suddenly at short ranges (including aircrafts pitching up or helicopters popping up).
The short reaction time is made possible by the Flycatcher Mk2’s multi-beam technology and combined antennae that avoid complex and lengthy calculation to compensate for misalignments of different antennae on traditional two-antenna systems. The co-axial mounting of track and surveillance radar obviates errors in angular references and the smallest possible acquisition area for the track radar during target hand-over from surveillance to track.
Much attention is given to the surveillance component to ensure minimum delay between target ‘unmask’ and reliable detections, with virtually no false alarms. The surveillance radar plays a critical role since it has to perform these detections in cluttered environment for targets with large differences in speed, size and attack angle. To fulfil these requirements, the Thales 4D multi-beam concept was applied in X-band to create excellent performance for low flying target detection and compact antenna design to support the mobility requirements.
Manoeuvrability of modern fighters is such that a minimum instantaneous elevation beam of 11° is required to ensure that a pitch-up attack can be detected and tracked. Detailed analyses confirm that ‘pencil beam’ radars often miss pitch-up attacks. In similar scenarios, the Flycatcher Mk2 multi-beam concept scans the total elevation coverage during each scan by using one transmit beam and 16 receiving beams, ensuring that the target cannot be missed.