New covert aerial tracking system unveiled
ELTA Systems on Tuesday unveiled a new Passive Coherent Location System ( PCL) which can covertly detect and track aerial targets.
The system, developed by the subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries ( IAI), creates a real- time map of all aircraft, including those that do not emit a signal and that may be hostile. The aircraft, also, do not know that they have been tracked. the company said.
“The new PCL system developed by IAI/ ELTA detects and classifies aerial risks without unveiling the locator,” the company said in its statement.
Adi Dulberg, VP and General Manager of IAI/ ELTA’s intelligence, communications and electronics warfare division, told The Jerusalem Post that such a system is “of interest to every country in the world because everyone wants to know what’s going on in the sky, be it civilian or military aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles.”
The system can be deployed independently, or as an additional layer for air control radars, as part of a multi- disciplinary air situation picture,” explained Dulberg.
It uses target reflection from transmissions from FM or Digital Audio Broadcasting ( DAB) towers that are received by one, or a network of antennas, providing 3D, real- time omni- directional coverage for tracking multiple targets in congested airspace.
The system can be installed on a vehicle or be set at a fixed location, with either one sensor, or a cluster of sensors for redundancy and it can cover a broad area.
The easily deployable system, that is connected to the central PCL main processing unit, can be located both in remote areas or in urban areas.
According to Dulberg, most countries detect and track aircraft by using active radar, but the PCL is a solution that enables systems to passively target aerial targets even if they don’t broadcast, by using civilian radio stations ( both FM and digital broadcasting) that transmit and hit the aircraft.
“Radio stations use low frequency which is very good at detecting targets with a low radar cross- section,” he said, adding that “unlike radars, because we don’t radiate, we have a very low signal, so if an enemy wants to jam or hit it they don’t know where it is.”
Dulberg would not say whether the system could detect and target stealth aircraft such as the F- 35 that falls under the family of low cross- section radar and while it is very difficult to detect using active radars, this system is very good for low- cross section radars.
“Military targets know that if they radiate they will be detected, so they’d rather not have that happen,” Dulberg said, adding that “what is unique, is that it doesn’t depend on if the target radiates or not, we will detect it if it radiates or if it doesn’t.”
With one customer in advanced stages of making the system operational, Dulberg told the Post that he expects it to be fully operational and deployed in the coming 12 months.