KB Radar reveal new air surveillance system is under government testing
Belarus’ KB Radar has told MONCh that the firm’s new Vostok-3D air surveillance radar is currently undergoing testing with that country’s government.
The Belarussian Armed Forces are widely expected to be the first customer for the Vostok-3D which could enter service with the country’s army over the next 18 months. The Vostok-3D is a development of the company’s legacy Vostok-2D and, as its name suggests, the new radar provides a three-dimensional radar picture giving information regarding air target velocity, bearing and altitude which is facilitated by mounting an S-band (2.3 gigahertz/GHz to 2.5GHz/2.7GHz to 3.7GHz) antenna on the rear face of the radar’s Very High Frequency (133 megahertz/MHz to 144MHz/216MHz to 225MHz) antenna.
While both the VHF and S-band antennae can determine range, velocity and azimuth, altitude is determined by the latter. Company officials continued that it will advise customers to primarily use the VHF antenna, only activating the S-band antenna to determine altitude when necessary. The officials stated the reason for this as being that current anti-radiation missiles in service around the world are said to be incapable of detecting and homing in on VHF radar transmissions, although this is not the case for S-band transmissions. KB Radar’s literature notes that the Vostok-3 has an instrumented range of 194.3 nautical miles (360 kilometres).
Tom Withington