The Erieye radar system is an Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) developed by

Saab Saab or SAAB may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Saab Group, a Swedish aerospace and defence company, formerly known as SAAB, and later as Saab AB ** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab AB * Saab Automobile, a fo ...

Electronic Defence Systems (formerly

Ericsson Microwave Systems (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

) of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. It uses

active electronically scanned array An active electronically scanned array (AESA) is a type of phased array antenna, which is a computer-controlled array antenna in which the beam of radio waves can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving the an ...

(AESA) technology. The Erieye is used on a variety of aircraft platforms, such as the

Saab 340 The Saab 340 is a Swedish twin-engine turboprop aircraft designed and initially produced by Saab AB and Fairchild Aircraft. It is designed to seat 30-36 passengers and, as of July 2018, there were 240 operational aircraft used by 34 different o ...

and

Embraer R-99 The Embraer R-99 is the Brazilian Air Force military designation of the EMB-145-RS. It is an aircraft based on the ERJ 145 civil regional jet. The R-99 series are equipped with Rolls-Royce AE1 3007 turbofan engines. The military versions provid ...

. It has recently been implemented on the

Bombardier Global 6000 The Bombardier Global Express is a large cabin, 6,000 nmi / 11,100 km range business jet designed and manufactured by Bombardier Aviation (formerly Bombardier Aerospace). Announced in October 1991, it first flew on 13 October 1996, recei ...

aircraft as the

GlobalEye GlobalEye is a multi-role airborne early warning & control (AEW&C) platform from Swedish defence and security company Saab. GlobalEye consists of a suite of sensors using Saab's Erieye ER (Extended Range) radar and mission system, installed in th ...

. The Erieye Ground Interface Segment (EGIS; not to be confused with the

Aegis combat system The Aegis Combat System is an American integrated naval weapons system developed by the Missile and Surface Radar Division of RCA, and it is now produced by Lockheed Martin. Initially used by the United States Navy, Aegis is now used also by t ...

) is a major component of the software used by the Erieye system. The radar provides 300 degree coverage and has an instrumental range of 450 km and detection range of 350 km in a dense hostile

electronic warfare Electronic warfare (EW) is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponen ...

environment—in heavy radar clutter and at low target altitudes. In addition to this, the radar is also capable of identifying friends or foes, and has a sea surveillance mode. The Erieye system has full interoperability with

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

air defence command and control systems.

History

In 1985

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

Microwave Systems were contracted by the Swedish Defence Material Administration to develop what would become the PS-890 Erieye AEW radar. In the same year a dummy dual-sided phased array antenna was tested on a twin-engined

Fairchild Metro The Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner (previously the Swearingen Metro and later Fairchild Aerospace Metro) is a 19-seat, pressurized, twin-turboprop airliner first produced by Swearingen Aircraft and later by Fairchild Aircraft at a plant in San ...

aircraft. In 1987 the Metro aircraft was fitted with the radar system for flight trials. Production of the radar started in 1993 following an order for six radars for the Swedish Air Force for fitment in

aircraft. The first two production radars were delivered in 1996. The name Erieye is short for Ericsson eye.

Operational history

Pakistan

In February of 2019, the

Pakistan Air Force , "Be it deserts or seas; all lie under our wings" (traditional) , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = ...

launched retaliatory airstrikes on Indian military installations at Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir in response to India's violation of Pakistani airspace and the bombing of a wooded area at

Balakot Balakot (; ur, ; ) is a town in Mansehra District in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The town was destroyed during the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, but was later rebuilt with the assistance of the Government of Pakistan and Saudi P ...

. While fighter jets from various PAF squadrons executed the airstrikes, Saab-2000 Erieye AWACS along with DA-20 EW supported them throughout the operation.

Design

EGVA - Embraer 145SA - Hellenic Air Force - 729 (30186004888)

The Erieye AEW&C mission system radar is an active,

phased-array In antenna theory, a phased array usually means an electronically scanned array, a computer-controlled array of antennas which creates a beam of radio waves that can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving th ...

pulse-doppler A pulse-Doppler radar is a radar system that determines the range to a target using pulse-timing techniques, and uses the Doppler effect of the returned signal to determine the target object's velocity. It combines the features of pulse radars an ...

sensor that can feed an onboard operator architecture or downlink data (via an associated datalink subsystem) to a ground-based air defence network. The system employs a large aperture, dual-sided antenna array housed in a dorsal 'plank' fairing. The antenna is fixed, and the beam is electronically scanned, which provides for improved detection and significantly enhanced tracking performance compared with radar-dome antenna systems. Erieye detects and tracks air and sea targets out to the horizon, and sometimes beyond this due to

anomalous propagation Anomalous propagation (sometimes shortened to anaprop or anoprop) Peter Meischner (ed.), ''Weather Radar: Principles and Advanced Applications'', Springer Science & Business Media, 2005, page 144 includes different forms of radio propagation due to ...

— instrumented range has been measured at . Typical detection range against fighter-sized targets is approximately , in a 150° broadside sector, both sides of the aircraft. Outside these sectors, performance is reduced in forward and aft directions. Other system features include: Adaptive waveform generation (including digital, phase-coded pulse compression); Signal processing and target tracking;

track while scan The track while scan (TWS) is a mode of radar operation in which the radar allocates part of its power to tracking the target or targets while part of its power is allocated to scanning, unlike the straight tracking mode, when the radar directs all ...

(TWS); low

side lobe In antenna engineering, sidelobes are the lobes (local maxima) of the far field radiation pattern of an antenna or other radiation source, that are not the ''main lobe''. The radiation pattern of most antennas shows a pattern of "''lobes'' ...

values (throughout the system's angular coverage); low- and medium-

pulse repetition frequency The pulse repetition frequency (PRF) is the number of pulses of a repeating signal in a specific time unit. The term is used within a number of technical disciplines, notably radar. In radar, a radio signal of a particular carrier frequency is tu ...

operating modes;

frequency agility Frequency agility is the ability of a radar system to quickly shift its operating frequency to account for atmospheric effects, jamming, mutual interference with friendly sources, or to make it more difficult to locate the radar broadcaster through ...

; Air-to-air and sea surveillance modes; and target

radar cross-section Radar cross-section (RCS), also called radar signature, is a measure of how detectable an object is by radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected. An object reflects a limited amount of radar energy back to the source. ...

display. The radar operates as a medium- to high-PRF pulse-Doppler, solid-state radar, in E/F-band (3 GHz), incorporating 192 two-way transmit/receive modules that combine to produce a pencil beam, steered as required within the operating 150° sector each side of the aircraft (one side at a time). It is understood that Erieye has some ability to detect aircraft in the 30° sectors fore and aft of the aircraft heading, but has no track capability in this sector.

Development

consists of a suite of sensors using Erieye ER (Extended Range) radar and mission system, installed in the

long-range

business jet A business jet, private jet, or bizjet is a jet aircraft designed for transporting small groups of people. Business jets may be adapted for other roles, such as the evacuation of casualties or express parcel deliveries, and some are used by pub ...

Operators

; *

Brazilian Air Force "Wings that protect the country" , colours = , colours_label = , march = Hino dos Aviadores , mascot = , anniversaries = 22 May (anniver ...

—

; *

Hellenic Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = 8 November , equipment = , equipment_label ...

— Formerly on

now on EMB-145H (Embraer R-99) airframe ; *

Mexican Air Force The Mexican Air Force (FAM; es, Fuerza Aérea Mexicana) is the primary aerial warfare service branch of the Mexican Armed Forces. It is a component of the Mexican Army and depends on the National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA). The objective of t ...

— Embraer R-99 * ; *

Pakistan Air Force , "Be it deserts or seas; all lie under our wings" (traditional) , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = ...

— Saab E-2000 ; *

Royal Saudi Air Force The Royal Saudi Air Force ( ar, ‎الْقُوَّاتُ الْجَوِّيَّةُ الْمَلَكِيَّةْ ٱلسُّعُوْدِيَّة, Al-Quwwat Al-Jawiyah Al-Malakiyah as-Su’udiyah) (RSAF) is the aviation branch of the Saudi Arabia ...

— Saab E-2000 ; *

Swedish Air Force The Swedish Air Force ( sv, Svenska flygvapnet or just ) is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. History The Swedish Air Force was created on 1 July, 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. Because of the es ...

— Saab 340 ; *

Royal Thai Air Force "Royal Thai Air Force March" , mascot = , anniversaries = 9 April 1937 (Royal Thai Air Force Day) , equipment = , equipment_label = , battles ...

— Saab 340 ; *

United Arab Emirates Air Force The United Arab Emirates Air Force (UAEAF) ( ar, القوات الجوية والدفاع الجوي الاماراتي, al-Quwwāt al-Jawiyah wa al-Defa' al-Jawiy al-ʾImārāty) is the air force of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), part of the U ...

— Saab 340,Saab signs contract with United Arab Emirates for airborne surveillance system
/ref> Global 6000

Applications

(EMB-145) *

, AEW&C solution on the

Saab 340 AEW&C The Saab 340 AEW&C is a Swedish airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft; a variant of the Saab 340 aircraft is designated S 100B Argus by the Swedish Air Force. Radar Compared to the traditional circular radar on AWACS planes, such ...

Saab 2000 The Saab 2000 is a twin-engined high-speed turboprop airliner built by Swedish aircraft manufacturer Saab. It is designed to carry 50–58 passengers and cruise at a speed of . Production took place in Linköping in southern Sweden. The Saab ...

Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner The Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner (previously the Swearingen Metro and later Fairchild Aerospace Metro) is a 19-seat, pressurized, twin-turboprop airliner first produced by Swearingen Aircraft and later by Fairchild Aircraft at a plant in San ...

(trials)

References

External links

* * * * * * {{cite web , url=https://www.saab.com/products/9airborne-c2 , title=9Airborne C2 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302204931/https://www.saab.com/products/9airborne-c2 , archive-date=2021-03-02 , url-status=live Aircraft radars Military radars of Sweden Ericsson Saab