| http://www.janes.com/defence/air_forces/news/jdw/jdw010828_2_n.shtml
28 August 2001 US Army to field radar that can penetrate trees By ANDREW KOCH, JDW Washington Bureau Chief, Washington DC The US Army is to field initial prototypes of a radar developed by Lockheed Martin that can help it defeat enemy efforts to camouflage and conceal their forces in trees and brush by next year - a shortcoming experienced during the 1999 war in Kosovo. The foliage-penetrating (FOPEN) radar, being developed by the service and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), can detect moving ground targets hiding under trees and fill gaps in sensor data that the Joint Surveillance & Target Attack Radar System aircraft is not able to provide. Testing of the radar is set to continue next month, with the objective of having prototypes ready for rapid transition to the US Southern Command and US European Command by the end of 2002, said Allen Tarbell of the Army Communications-Electronics Command's Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate. The US Army's initial flight tests of the radar last September and October on a surrogate RC-12 Guardrail aircraft proved that the system can penetrate limited foliage (Jane's Defence Weekly 3 July 2000). Tests of the radar, which operates at a 30� depression angle at ranges of 20-25km, has shown a high degree of target accuracy, although issues with target classification have yet to be resolved, Tarbell said. The new tests will involve checking the system's ability to penetrate more dense foliage in preparation for possible use on a manned Aerial Reconnaissance- Low aircraft. 232 of 449 words [End of non-subscriber extract.] The full version of this article is accessible through our subscription services. Please refer to the box below for details. |
