Russian PESA and AESA Radars

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

I would think having studies done by the government without interference from big business sponsorship would lead to better standards, and I am not sure what you mean by better studies?

Do you think they just half arse their tests and studies... whereas studies funded in the west by cell phone companies are impeccable and give only accurate and transferable results that prove conclusively that western standard are correct and Soviet standards are too conservative?

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

By better standard I assume stricter and less tollerant is what is meant, whereas western standards therefore allow more exposure and longer exposure and still call it safe.

I would say to make a mistake in this regard it is better to be too strict than too loose...

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

I would assume the parts of the Russian government that sets their standards will not be bought by the companies making the hardware and setting up the networks.

Interesting that the Soviets were the first to put a PESA radar in a fighter aircraft, but have not raced to AESA in the same way the west has, but now they are on the cusp of putting AESAs in service they show something like this... which suggests they plan to not just put conventional AESAs into service, but more advanced systems...

Well atleast the antennas I suppose and they are a little thicker than paint and lacquer according to source so maybe even thinner than paper, ooh lord I cant imagine how great the active radar would be in all directions, and its passive detection where any radio wave hits its body to conduct EW or finding an aerial target alot easier.

The Russians did mention surface mounted radar antenna that can provide 360 degree views... perhaps the Su-57M will have more than just new engines...

Cheetah wrote: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).

Yes but we're talking about a LOT of microwave energy. I saw a vid where someone put a piece of wood in front of an F-15 radar and it burst into flames.

GarryB wrote:
The Russians did mention surface mounted radar antenna that can provide 360 degree views... perhaps the Su-57M will have more than just new engines...

They already have them.
In the sense that their L band radar has several antennas,two of which, situated in the wing tips, facing rearward.

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.

This is big news. I thought it was worth quoting the text:

The low profile height antenna developed within the framework Of the project of the Foundation for advanced research, capable of working with a wide frequency band, was included in theTop 10 best inventions of 2020 according to Rospatent.

Based on the invention, antenna layouts are created, and the antenna array of the world's first operational demonstration model of a radio-optical phased active antenna array is constructed. The technology makes it possible to create antennas and antenna arrays that can be made in the form of active skin of various carriers with a thickness slightly more than the thickness of the paintwork.

This goes a long way explaining how ROFAR will work, until now it was not clear to me at all how this kind of radar would actually look like, but it seems indeed they will have big antenna units distributed along the plane's skin and the fact that they are wide band is what makes them capable of attending the needs of such radiolocator, unlike the current ones. I wonder how many of the potential advantages will be implemented, like distributed wideband ESM/ECM and even active stealth (active cancellation of backscattered fields over a wide frequency range and along the whole plane geometry would have great implcations). This will be a serious transformational technology for air power...

I saw posts that claim that the Irbis-E is 20 years behind compared towestern AESA radars. Is it true that western AESAs apparently are far more accurate and long ranged?

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Irbis-E-PESA-radar-of-Su-35-superior-than-the-AESA-radars-of-Western-4-5-generation-combat-aircrafts

AESA radar gives you significant performance advantage over PESA in every aspect – from range, resolution to jamming resistance & LPI characteristics. It’s common for an AESA radar to have twice the range of its PESA counterpart. The SPY-6 for instance has over 3 times the range (100 times more sensitivity) of its predecessor SPY-1D(v). In addition to vastly superior multi-tasking and previously non-existing capabilities like simultaneous Air-Air and Air-Ground operations.

Why is Russia 20 years behind the US? Because Russia historically lagged behind the West in avionics, especially Fighter-radars. Look no further than Su-35’s mighty radar. In 2014 Irbis-E, the best operational radar on a Russian aircraft has a SAR resolution of 3 meter as per the manufacturer (NIIP).

Source: NIIP - Irbis E

That is comparable to F-15E’s APG-70 radar from 1980s which had 8.5 ft (2.6 meter) resolution.


Synthetic Aperture Resolution is a reliable indicator of performance and level of technology. It’s proportional to the radar’s operational bandwidth, which is directly related to ECCMs (jamming resistance) and LPI characteristics.

A PESA radar with a smaller bandwidth is a serious disadvantage in today’s world where Self-protection ESM suite have become much more capable in last 20 years. In fact, today Su-35 is the only major front-line Fighter in the world without an AESA radar.

Russian semiconductor industry significantly lag behind the West. You can see that not only in radars but also IR sensors. Russia until very recently relied on French Imaging IR sensors for their tanks. Su-35’s IRST, OLS-35 is using non-Imaging IR sensor, you can tell by the number of targets it can track – 4.
An Imaging IR sensor can easily track in double or triple digits. So lack of industrial capability is the first and foremost reason for why Russia is yet to field an operational AESA radar on a Fighter.

Second would be a poor economy. Manufacturing capable AESA radars is a very expensive process, especially to break the initial cost curve. There’s a reason why Eurofighter Typhoon’s Captor-E AESA radar is yet to become operational despite flight testing beginning in 2016. Eurofighter TYPHOON - Moving to Electronically Scanned Radar

It’s only because of US military’s massive budget and demand combined with industrial capacity that it has been able to field 3 generations of AESA radars on Fighters when rest of the world barely fielded their first.

Sadly for Russia it lacks both the industrial capacity and money.

limb wrote:I saw posts that claim that the Irbis-E is 20 years behind compared towestern AESA radars. Is it true that western AESAs apparently are far more accurate and long ranged?

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Irbis-E-PESA-radar-of-Su-35-superior-than-the-AESA-radars-of-Western-4-5-generation-combat-aircrafts

AESA radar gives you significant performance advantage over PESA in every aspect – from range, resolution to jamming resistance & LPI characteristics. It’s common for an AESA radar to have twice the range of its PESA counterpart. The SPY-6 for instance has over 3 times the range (100 times more sensitivity) of its predecessor SPY-1D(v). In addition to vastly superior multi-tasking and previously non-existing capabilities like simultaneous Air-Air and Air-Ground operations.

Why is Russia 20 years behind the US? Because Russia historically lagged behind the West in avionics, especially Fighter-radars. Look no further than Su-35’s mighty radar. In 2014 Irbis-E, the best operational radar on a Russian aircraft has a SAR resolution of 3 meter as per the manufacturer (NIIP).

Source: NIIP - Irbis E

That is comparable to F-15E’s APG-70 radar from 1980s which had 8.5 ft (2.6 meter) resolution.


Synthetic Aperture Resolution is a reliable indicator of performance and level of technology. It’s proportional to the radar’s operational bandwidth, which is directly related to ECCMs (jamming resistance) and LPI characteristics.

A PESA radar with a smaller bandwidth is a serious disadvantage in today’s world where Self-protection ESM suite have become much more capable in last 20 years. In fact, today Su-35 is the only major front-line Fighter in the world without an AESA radar.

Russian semiconductor industry significantly lag behind the West. You can see that not only in radars but also IR sensors. Russia until very recently relied on French Imaging IR sensors for their tanks. Su-35’s IRST, OLS-35 is using non-Imaging IR sensor, you can tell by the number of targets it can track – 4.
An Imaging IR sensor can easily track in double or triple digits. So lack of industrial capability is the first and foremost reason for why Russia is yet to field an operational AESA radar on a Fighter.

Second would be a poor economy. Manufacturing capable AESA radars is a very expensive process, especially to break the initial cost curve. There’s a reason why Eurofighter Typhoon’s Captor-E AESA radar is yet to become operational despite flight testing beginning in 2016. Eurofighter TYPHOON - Moving to Electronically Scanned Radar

It’s only because of US military’s massive budget and demand combined with industrial capacity that it has been able to field 3 generations of AESA radars on Fighters when rest of the world barely fielded their first.

Sadly for Russia it lacks both the industrial capacity and money.

It is hyperbole. It is true that passive array tech is older, and certain features cherry picked like the 3 meters squared SAR resolution. But much of what they say is either out of ignorance or fanboi nonsense. For example often times you will hear discussion about how a video example of irbis e only detecting fighter size target 200 km away. What they dont mention is that the radar at that moment was only broadcasting at about one kilowatt power range. They also say that the 400 km detection range is false and is only in narrow search cued mode. What they dont mention is that every manufacturer does this. Classic example is the old slotted array from the block 50 f-16. They gave a massive detection range but mentioned in the fine print that this was for bomber/cargo carrier size targets. It is a great radar, btw, but still every company is going to put the best face to their product.

No the irbis e is not old tech. It would be like saying the f-15ex is old tech because it is based on the old f-15 fourth gen platform. The irbis e is amazing kit. Great power, low signal noise, impressive frequency agility, and has features which take it beyond older pesa systems. It's why the ruskies aren't quick to put in an aesa set as the expense of getting one with the same power as the irbis e is extremely expensive and unlike chinese they aren't going to rush new systems in to impress the western world.

When someone finishes off an article with
"sadly Russia lacks industrial capacity and money" then you know it is a anti Russian triumphalist fuckknuckle who's living in the 1990's

I've heard all this hype about Pesa radars too lately. If they are so great Russia would probably be investing in them. Like everything in military ,there is probably trade offs with both systems with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Just like some donkey in the submarine thread who effectively said the same thing about the Yansen class lacking a pump jet.

"About the Yasen lacking a pump jet"

Cringy nonsense. I've heard that too. Same bullshit with the Chinese and their obsession with sticking diverterless intakes even on the j-20. Hey it won't go past mach 2 but it looks very western and modern!

- It is is Hybrid. Not fully PESA or AESA
- It's max power output is 20KW which gives it it's 400KM detection range that was tested back in 2014. Long before advent of newer tech. That isn't necessary narrow beam either.
- AESA has better resolution at a cost of range. It is assumed each module will run at full capacity. They don't and also have a failure rate of 10% average. Meaning high chance not all modules will be working at all.
- Fighter sized targets in US and Russia calculations are different. Russians tend to be very concervative with their numbers hence why it's 3m^2
- It's power input vs power output. Hence why Irbis-e has the most powerful (raw power) radar for a fighter jet in active service. The engines have to provide the necessary power. Hence why Russia's N036 AESA radar has about same performance as Irbis-e.
- what does Imaging Infrared have to do with the IRST and radar? It's a false comparison if I ever saw one. Only other nations with a better IRST than Russia is France for their Jets.
- LPI mode is hilarious. Only works on Jets that don't have the sensors to pick up radiation.
- I don't think that poster knows what the term Industrial capacity means.

I am pretty sure su-35's irst has iir

Hilarious... very entertaining.

Funny how they are so behind in fighter aircraft radar yet so far ahead in space tracking radar and over the horizon stealth fighter tracking radar...

When working together the Americans found that Russian space tracking was much much better and more accurate... they were able to track much smaller particles in space in earth orbit... down to objects the size of paint chips.


The radars they are putting on their tanks for the APS systems seem world class too.

Small portable battlefield radars were identified as showing they couldn't make thermal imagers... the French make small portable battlefield radars, so point clearly proven.... they are shit at IIR...  

Most of the best features of electronically scanned radar antennas are achieved with PESA... what PESA lacks is not enormous and comes at the obvious significant price of having an array of essentially thousands of radar transmit and receive elements.

A very good PESA is going to have most of the best features of an AESA, but without the cost.

In 2014 Irbis-E, the best operational radar on a Russian aircraft has a SAR resolution of 3 meter as per the manufacturer (NIIP).

Obviously a western fighter has SAR resolution down to milimetres because when they murder people at weddings they want to make sure the bride is married and wearing a ring before they fuck her and her entire family and friends with some HE and shrapnel from the peace loving democratic west. The Grooms family are left alive... that is what they mean by surgical strike...

Synthetic Aperture Resolution is a reliable indicator of performance and level of technology. It’s proportional to the radar’s operational bandwidth, which is directly related to ECCMs (jamming resistance) and LPI characteristics.

That is amusing because those American F-35s on the Iran Iraq border that were being tracked by long wave ground based Russian radar located thousands of kms away likely had no idea they were being tracked...

Shorter wavelengths are more effected by RAM and stealth shaping.

A PESA radar with a smaller bandwidth is a serious disadvantage in today’s world where Self-protection ESM suite have become much more capable in last 20 years. In fact, today Su-35 is the only major front-line Fighter in the world without an AESA radar.

The Su-35 is the only fighter aircraft in the world with wing root mounted L band anti stealth fighter AESA radar... talk about LPI... western aircraft couldn't detect emissions in that range... but the Su-35 pilot could use it to locate a stealth fighter with an accuracy level good enough to then use the Irbis to detect the target without needing high power scanning.

Which is what you would expect from the only country that has faced the prospect of major enemy use of stealth aircraft... wonder how HATO will cope as Russia introduces more stealth platforms and weapons.

Russia until very recently relied on French Imaging IR sensors for their tanks

The Russians no longer trail the French in IIR sensors for armoured vehicles.... isn't that a good thing for Russia... few western countries could say they have better IIR sensors than France...

Su-35’s IRST, OLS-35 is using non-Imaging IR sensor, you can tell by the number of targets it can track – 4.

Yeah, this guy is an idiot. IRST is not and has never been a type of thermal imaging sensor.

An Imaging IR sensor can easily track in double or triple digits.

It could but then it would not be an IRST sensor it would be an IIR sensor...

So lack of industrial capability is the first and foremost reason for why Russia is yet to field an operational AESA radar on a Fighter.

Excessive cost without any obvious gain is why they have not rushed to put AESAs on fighters, and that is wrong because the MiG-35 has an AESA radar AFAIK.

The MiG-31 has had a PESA radar since the late 1970s.

Various enormous Soviet SAM systems have array radars of lots of different types and various OTH radars also have AESA radar arrays too.

They know how to make them... they can spend money where it makes sense to spend money... they make entire submarines out of titanium for goodness sake.

AESA radars in fighter aircraft is part of the reason F-35s cost 120 million dollars and Su-35s cost about 40 million.

Manufacturing capable AESA radars is a very expensive process, especially to break the initial cost curve.

The Russian MIC is state owned... economics does not come in to it in a commercial sense... there is no risk... the company will not fail...

The Su-57 has 5 AESA radars, the Su-35 has two, plus a hybrid in its nose, and the MiG-35 has one in its nose... and their new ships are fitted with them... even their tanks have them and their Ka-52K helicopters have them... soon everything will have them... it is in production that innovation takes place... components get smaller and lighter and cheaper and better performing and more reliable with fewer mistakes or problems or faulty units...

They are also on the verge of releasing the next gen radar that makes western super expensive super AESA radars look rather ordinary...

It’s only because of US military’s massive budget and demand combined with industrial capacity that it has been able to field 3 generations of AESA radars on Fighters when rest of the world barely fielded their first.

Good radars in shit planes... would rather go with what Russia has... good enough radars in affordable and capable planes... they haven't got an enormous number of them but they are part of an IADS that works so they don't need a lot of them like HATO does because HATO hasn't got anything without their fighters and AWACS platforms to direct them.

limb wrote:...
Why is Russia 20 years behind the US? Because Russia historically lagged behind the West in avionics, especially Fighter-radars. Look no further than Su-35’s mighty radar. In 2014 Irbis-E, the best operational radar on a Russian aircraft has a SAR resolution of 3 meter as per the manufacturer (NIIP).

Source: NIIP - Irbis E

That is comparable to F-15E’s APG-70 radar from 1980s which had 8.5 ft (2.6 meter) resolution.

Synthetic Aperture Resolution is a reliable indicator of performance and level of technology. It’s proportional to the radar’s operational bandwidth, which is directly related to ECCMs (jamming resistance) and LPI characteristics.
...
Russian semiconductor industry significantly lag behind the West. You can see that not only in radars but also IR sensors. Russia until very recently relied on French Imaging IR sensors for their tanks. Su-35’s IRST, OLS-35 is using non-Imaging IR sensor, you can tell by the number of targets it can track – 4.
An Imaging IR sensor can easily track in double or triple digits. So lack of industrial capability is the first and foremost reason for why Russia is yet to field an operational AESA radar on a Fighter.

Second would be a poor economy. Manufacturing capable AESA radars is a very expensive process, especially to break the initial cost curve. There’s a reason why Eurofighter Typhoon’s Captor-E AESA radar is yet to become operational despite flight testing beginning in 2016. Eurofighter TYPHOON - Moving to Electronically Scanned Radar

It’s only because of US military’s massive budget and demand combined with industrial capacity that it has been able to field 3 generations of AESA radars on Fighters when rest of the world barely fielded their first.

Sadly for Russia it lacks both the industrial capacity and money.

SAR mode is used for attacking ground targets. You are comparing a fighter optimized for air-to-air combat like the Su-35 with a fighter bomber like the F-15E Strike Eagle.

The South Koreans have the F-15K Slam Eagle which is more modern than the F-15E.
The aircraft was selected by the South Korean government after it ran in a competition against other aircraft including the Su-35. The first delivery of the F-15K Slam Eagle was in 2010 while the Su-35 was first delivered in 2013.
Now let us compare something other than SAR mode which also depends on radar processing power and hence electronics advancement.
Number of targets able to be tracked and engaged.
The AN/APG-63(V)1 uses the same backplane and hence has the same compute power for signal processing as the AN/APG-63(V)2 AESA radar.
The AN/APG-63(V)1 radar used in the F-15K can track 14 targets and engage 6. The Irbis-E radar used in the Su-35 can track 30 targets and engage 8.
Does this look better to you?

The Irbis-E has 20 kW power versus 7 kW power for the older radar the Flanker used to have.
This supposedly matches well against US radars at the time of its introduction.
http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Flanker-Radars.html

The USA was not even the first nation to field an AESA radar on a fighter aircraft. Japan did this with the Mitsubishi F-2.
The Mitsubishi F-2 uses the J/APG-1 radar designed and manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric.

With regards to tank imaging sensors the T-80U had an image intensifier and had night sights comparable with the best NATO designs.
It was only with the entry into service of the M1A2 that they added a thermal sight to the M1.
So basically they only lost parity in tank night sights with the collapse of the USSR. It was not a structural problem of Soviet industry as these people make it out to be.

If I am not wrong, it is only recently where AESA technology had matured with increasing availablity of GaN modules..
Otherwise, there was not that of performance difference between GaAs AESA and hybrid PESA radars

The low profile height antenna developed within the framework Of the project of the Foundation for advanced research, capable of working with a wide frequency band, was included in theTop 10 best inventions of 2020 according to Rospatent.

Low profile height antenna sounds like it is optimised for locating in wing leading or trailing edges, or for AWACS use in a shallow dish...

What is the working principle of Photonic radars?
Just asking for a friend as I am not fully sure of the workings

Anybody ever heard of the S41 Zhuk ESA radar? It was apparently used in the Yak 141

I believe you get a brief glimpse of it on yolkhere's redwave music video of the yak-141.

Wouldn't get too excited though, most of the features of that aircraft were theoretical and were no where near combat ready.

At the time I would say it was a PESA rather than an AESA, but if it was an AESA it would probably still not be in service... for the same reason the AESA radars for the MiG-35 supposedly are not in service yet.

Not something to be ashamed of... the west didn't just flick a switch and all their fighters have AESA radar.

They spent a lot of money and took a lot of time and it is a big part of the reason their fighters cost more than Russian frigates.

As the technology improves and new technology develops I suspect their plan is eventually to skip a gen and use AESA arrays of phonic radar elements.

Their current radar seem good enough.

Well but the Su-57 radar is AESA.

And also some russian naval radars are AESA as well.

Most of their SAM radars are AESA these days, and they are putting AESA radars in the noses of their new AAMs too so production is there... there must be some other reason they have not taken that step.

Of course they only have about 6 MiG-35s in service so I don't see why they wouldn't fit AESA radars to those... with only 6 planes they could hand make those radars if they wanted them that much...

I suspect they are continuing to improve the software and design before deploying them in aircraft... the number of transmit and receive elements they would need for all the radar arrays they are already making would mean they would need to produce them in enormous volumes... and mass serial production is the best way to improve performance and reduce costs and reduce dud rates.

It is in production that materials and production shortcuts can be made to improve quality and reduce the time it takes to make them and also make them even smaller and more powerful.

http://journal.almaz-antey.ru/jour/article/view/294

Nice article on AESA radars for drones.

For those wanting to make things easier about 3/4ths down the first page there is a link saying pdf (eng). If you left click on that it opens a new page with a pdf window showing the document in english. At the top right of the pdf window there is a button that looks like >> .

If you click on that a drop down menu appears. If you choose save you can save a copy of the pdf in english on your computer to read at your leisure.

UZB-76 wrote:What is the working principle of Photonic radars?
Just asking for a friend as I am not fully sure of the workings

Photonics can refer to 2 things so far.

1.Photonic true time delay

That is to address operational frequency bandwidth issue with typical phased array radars. To steer beam electronically, typical fighter phased array use phase shifters in the antenna. This small device introduce phase shifts to the radiowave delivered by the transmitters in controlled manner, thus electronic beamsteering is achieved. Problem with this method of beamsteering is that if the frequency are changed beyond the calibrated phase shifts for the phase shfters, the beam will miss point or steer itself to unwanted direction. This phenomenon is referred as "Beamsquint".

Photonic true time delay address this by using fiber optics with laser to deliver correct phase shift to the TRM's (unfortunately Photonic true time delat only available for AESA). Problem with implementation is you have to cuts multiple length of fiber optics to provide correct phase shifts and this could be impractical. There are "middle" Implementation but i have no idea on whether it's already in deployed radar system. Other means of implementation is using Rotman lens but this usually done on Jammers/ECM's. The lens tho may introduce some losses.

2.QUantum Radar

I'm not really sure tho on how this actually works, whether it's laser/optics or some sort of conventional radar but with laser/quantum transmitter. It has so much claims yet there seems no real system deployed so far.

Hey stealthflanker if you see this post what did you think of that brochure that atmosphere posted a couple posts up?