Russia reveals lightweight version of NO11M Bars radar

JANE’S DEFENCE WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 02, 2005

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Russia reveals lightweight version of NO11M Bars radar
Piotr Butowski JDW Correspondent
Gdansk

Russian radar design bureau Tikhomirov NIIP will present for the first time a lightweight version of its N011M Bars radar at Aero India 2005 in Bangalore, 9-13 February.

The mock-up, designated Bars-29, is being marketed for new versions of the MiG-29 multirole fighter aircraft.

Bars-29, with electronic scanning, is designed for MiG-29M2 (multi-role combat aircraft, MRCA), which are being offered for India’s requirement for 126 lightweight multirole fighters, as well as for mid-life upgrades of about 50 MiG-29s currently in service with the Indian Air Force (IAF). NIIP officials said that the Bars-29 radar “has all possible interfaces” and can be installed on other fighters including the Dassault Aviation Mirage 2000, which is also taking part in the tender.

During initial negotiations, India requested that the MiG-29’s radar be compatible with the N011M Bars radar installed in the larger Su-30MKI fighter aircraft it already has in service.

The IAF has 32 Su-30MKIs and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd is launching licensed production. This compatibility would reduce operation cost due to standardisation of ground testing and training facilities, crew flight training, radar servicing, and delivery of spare parts.

Tamerlan Bekirbayev, chief designer of the Bars radar, told JDW that two variants of Bars-29 are being considered. The first will retain most of the components of N011M Bars. The new antenna has a 60 cm diameter and weighs 50kg -60 kg, about half the weight of the original, which has a 96 cm diameter.

Two other new subassemblies of the Bars-29 will be a super high-frequency receiver and driving oscillator made using the same technology as N011M Bars. The overall weight of the Bars-29 radar will be 350 kg-400 kg, about 100 kg less than the N011M Bars.

Other more ambitious variants of the Bars-29 radar will have new equipment modules made with more recent technology; in this case, the radar weight may be reduced to 250 kg-300 kg.

Bekirbayev said that Bars-29 could be ready within three years.

“We will take maximum advantage of operational algorithms and software that has already been made for Bars. This is the most time consuming part of work on [a] new radar,” he said. Some 90 per cent of Bars-29’s software will be copied from Bars.

Until recently, RSK MiG Corporation developed new versions of the MiG-29 fitted with slotted-array Zhuk-ME radar, an export variant of the Zhuk-M, made by NIIP’s competitors, the Phazotron-NIIR design bureau. The Zhuk-ME is fitted to prototypes of MiG-29M2 MRCA and MiG-29K fighters as well as to the MiG-29SMT manufactured for Yemen and Eritrea.

On 20 January 2004, India bought the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier from Russia and ordered 16 MiG-29K/KUB shipborne fighters, with an option for 30 more to be delivered in 2007-08. According to the contract, the MiG-29K will be equipped with Zhuk-ME radars and there are no plans for installing Bars-29 on these aircraft. :confused: