What is AWACS?
AWACS is Airborne Warning And Control System. It is a long-range radar surveillance system which detects aircraft, ships, vehicles and missiles. The system is mounted on an aircraft. The main antenna is mounted in a circular rotodome. It has a 360 – degree view and can detect aircrafts more than 200 miles away.
AWACS first used pulse-Doppler radar. Present AWACS uses three-dimensional radar that measure azimuth, range and elevation all together.
Airborne early warning and control E-2 Hawkeye uses APY-9 radar which detects fighter stealth aircraft using advanced electronic scanning.
Beriev A-50 and A-50 U “Shmel” uses non-rotating disk radome on the rear fuselage. Beriev A – 100 uses AESA (Active electronically scanned array) array in the radome.
KJ-2000 consists of three phased array radar (PAR) modules which are placed in a triangular configuration in a round radome and gives 360 degree coverage.
‘Netra’ consists of two radiating planar arrays in an active antenna array unit giving a 240 degree coverage.
GlobalEye uses Erieye radar system which uses active electronically scanned array technology gives a 300 degree coverage and has a instrumental range of 450 km and detection range of 350 km.
EL/W – 2090 uses active electronically scanned array radar and consists of an array transmit / receive modules allowing beam to be electronically steered.
