Russian PESA and AESA Radars

So what does this Rofar emit ? Lasers ? or some form of other rays ?.

Stealthflanker wrote:So what does this Rofar emit ? Lasers ? or some form of other rays ?.

ROFARs are standard radars except built on on photonic circuits rather than electron based circuits, with resulting vastly superior performance due to photons not having mass.

Instead of using a solid-state waveform generator feeding into a amplifier as todays electronics, you instead have a special laser and crystal that produced the waveform, with better efficiency, mass, and ability to significantly expand available bandwidth.


Take for example the three radars of the Nebo-M series, VHF/L/S&X band AESAs and there associated command platform that fuses all their raw data into one refined "picture", a ROFAR could outperform all three radars combined(It could emit in those bands and more near simultaneously), and be smaller and lighter with less power draw and heat generation, due to the expanded bandwidth feature.

x_54_u43 wrote:

ROFARs are standard radars except built on on photonic circuits rather than electron based circuits, with resulting vastly superior performance due to photons not having mass.

Instead of using a solid-state waveform generator feeding into a amplifier as todays electronics, you instead have a special laser and crystal that produced the waveform, with better efficiency, mass, and ability to significantly expand available bandwidth.


Take for example the three radars of the Nebo-M series, VHF/L/S&X band AESAs and there associated command platform that fuses all their raw data into one refined "picture", a ROFAR could outperform all three radars combined(It could emit in those bands and more near simultaneously), and be smaller and lighter with less power draw and heat generation, due to the expanded bandwidth feature.

So it's basically a Photonic True Time delay AESA where the waveform from the master oscillator is "fed" to the each Transmit Receive Module via optic fiber ? Thus it is not a "Quantum Radar"

The TRM the re-convert the laser to RF wave and emit it as usual ? The beamsteering is instead of phase shifter (which bottlenecks the bandwidth) Is done through the optic fiber which cuts into different length representing the phase required for the beamsteering.

Whats the difference between LIDAR, chinese quantum radar, and ROFAR?

limb wrote:Whats the difference between LIDAR, chinese quantum radar, and ROFAR?

LIDAR is simply using a laser to "sound" various targets. They are used in atmospheric science to measure vertical profiles of composition and state of the air.
So you can measure temperature profiles and aerosols profiles by processing the back-scattered photons. LIDARs lack the ability to sample a large volume
of space unless they are used in scanning mode. But then the limit is the mechanical apparatus which moves the angle of the laser and the time it takes
to process the scatter from the same laser. Conventional radar sends a broad beam of radio waves (for example) and then processes the back-scatter
from a large volume of space. Thus it can target multiple objects at the same time better than scanning LIDAR. I have not actually seen any references
on scanning LIDAR but that is the only way to make it useful as a RADAR tech.

They mean that jamming cannot manage to saturate the receptor, because it has a HUGE dynamic range (200 dB or 20 orders of magnitude, is even possible???). So you add the jamming signal to the RCS, but the receptor can still see both.

thegopnik wrote:found some new information(although old not discussed here) https://naukatehnika.com/fotonnye-radary-fotonika-stels-texnologii.html



"Unlike traditional radars, it will not be physically possible to silence ROFAR by traditional means of EW. The dynamic range of the photon crystal is about 200 DB. Modern electronic receiver, for comparison, has a range of 40 - 60 DB, and we modern EW complexes provide a signal to the entrance of the radio receiver - in 70-80 DB relative to its threshold sensitivity. Thus, the device that needs to receive the signal is displayed from a healthy state. Even after the interference in his inside there are still processes that do not allow him to work. But on Earth there is simply no energy source for a signal with a capacity greater than 200 DB, so this logic in the case of ROFAR simply does not work. It can be confused by so-called intellectual opposition, but this is a different story."

Anyone like stealthflanker or other users that could dumb this EW decibel numbers down? So I am assuming that radar receiver sensitivity at most is receiving 80 decibels and that a photonic crystal has 200 decibels of receiver sensitivity? Forgive me for mentioning this thread here https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=28508 but this seems to also mention the max Receiver sensitivity of aircrafts. Are photonic radars basically un-jammable?

"The dynamic range of the photon crystal is about 200 DB."

...im pretty dense with this higher level tech stuff but 200db is lethal af. if a full power burst from that radar were to be targeted at a person would that equate to 200db of energy? if so then damn...

I've heard that even the irbis e can actually injure opposing pilots if hit by a full power burst some kilometers away.

All radars are dangerous

Apparently one guy back in a day accidentally walked in front of F-14 during radar testing and pretty much dropped dead on the spot

I was under the impression all that stuff about radars killing things on the spot was BS. I could be wrong, but it's microwaves, not magic. Should just cause things in the beam to heat up (admittedly from the inside out, but still).

PapaDragon wrote:
All radars are dangerous

Apparently one guy back in a day accidentally walked in front of F-14 during radar testing and pretty much dropped dead on the spot

There's a reason why that off to the side of a fighters nose cone is that "warning radiation" symbol, and radars typically emit powerful microwave radiation. Just put a pack of microwavable popcorn in the microwave oven to get the picture.

Radar beam is concentrated when it exits the radar.

The further it goes the more the cone expends and is less concentrated unless it is a narrow beam for tracking.

IMO EM signals impact on human body is not yet very well understood. But frankly I wouldn't want 10kW hitting me directly at 2m range.

You can see smartphone cooking popcorn with a call signal. Scaling up it gives you representation of a powerfull radar beam on human body.

damn aircraft in general are just dangerous. remember hearing that the A-7 corsair (one of my favorites) had a nasty propensity to seriously shock people who put their hands on top of the front cockpit to get out of the vehicle. had to be careful. i've heard other stories about tests with phased array radars and their sheer power. still i bet you guys are right that some might be old soldiers legends.

I did some brief reading around and it appears that you have to be pretty close (and absent-minded) for a radar operating in these frequencies to cause some fatal injury, because it's certainly not a common occurrence. I briefly skimmed over two studies on the long-term effects of day-to-day military radar operators.

The first claimed a whole host of negative, mental related issues, like mental fatigue, depression, issues with short-term memory; But it should be said that that article was retracted (taken down due to serious issues with the paper, either administrative or scientific)

The other was a long-term study of Belgian military personnel, which linked radar operators with a higher risk of cancer at a later stage in life, but it then goes on to say that other similar studies in the US have found no such link.

Apparently, for nation-wide TV transmission towers, it is sufficient to wear some heavier clothing and eye protection to service them. And, I think it could be argued that such a tower would have a equally high, or higher emission strength than the majority of military radars.

---
Also, a tangent, but that thing about a phone cooking popcorn was debunked yonks back. The phone produces, something in the ballpark of >1w, while a microwave oven produces 1000w, and still takes a solid half-minute to get the kernels to start bursting. If you're trying to do that with a phone, you'll be there a while.

---
The two studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3777288/
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ijc.23988

https://fpi.gov.ru/press/news/razrabotannaya-v-ramkakh-proekta-fpi-antenna-voshla-v-top-10-izobreteniy-2020-goda/

The world's first radio-optical AESA.

Isos wrote:Radar beam is concentrated when it exits the radar.

The further it goes the more the cone expends and is less concentrated unless it is a narrow beam for tracking.

IMO EM signals impact on human body is not yet very well understood. But frankly I wouldn't want 10kW hitting me directly at 2m range.

You can see smartphone cooking popcorn with a call signal. Scaling up it gives you representation of a powerfull radar beam on human body.

The common metric for impact in the west has been the level of energy absorbed by human tissue. This is a primitive metric.
The problem is not simple cooking of the flesh, it is about genetic damage. In this regard the USSR standard for EM exposure
was wholly superior and accounted for the impact of low level emissions. So "common perceptions" about EM exposure
safety that dominate the internet are BS.

They may have higher standards but fo they have better studies about EM impact on the body ?

Without reliable data on that, even if they have better standard that doesn't mean it's enough.

With 5G now those data are even more biased since they hurry to put that in service.

kvs wrote:

Isos wrote:Radar beam is concentrated when it exits the radar.

The further it goes the more the cone expends and is less concentrated unless it is a narrow beam for tracking.

IMO EM signals impact on human body is not yet very well understood. But frankly I wouldn't want 10kW hitting me directly at 2m range.

You can see smartphone cooking popcorn with a call signal. Scaling up it gives you representation of a powerfull radar beam on human body.

The common metric for impact in the west has been the level of energy absorbed by human tissue.   This is a primitive metric.
The problem is not simple cooking of the flesh, it is about genetic damage.   In this regard the USSR standard for EM exposure
was wholly superior and accounted for the impact of low level emissions.    So "common perceptions" about EM exposure
safety that dominate the internet are BS.  

This is quite correct. Take for example the alpha and beta radiation emissions from depleted uranium. Many idiots think that because that it's 'depleted' and doesn't actively emit gamma radiation, that it's now completely safe. As we all know by now that is far from the case. Uranium in it's 'depleted' state still routinely catches on fire when hit with abrasive wind resistance, and is also a heavy metal that damages the human circulatory system and easily bypasses the blood-brain-barrier. But worst of all 'depleted' uranium particles in the blood stream actively emits alpha and beta radiation and acts like a genotoxin that seriously damages DNA, comparable to taking a chainsaw to young tree saplings. Just look up the work from Dr. Doug Rokke.

thegopnik wrote:

x_54_u43 wrote:https://fpi.gov.ru/press/news/razrabotannaya-v-ramkakh-proekta-fpi-antenna-voshla-v-top-10-izobreteniy-2020-goda/

The world's first radio-optical AESA.

Correction world's first image of a radio-optical AESA, few companies already had prototypes. You deserve more likes despite the antennas looking like floor tiles.

is this a photonic radar that I've heard about before?