Astra Microwave has already delivered 3 such arrays. Also, the X-band T/r modules for Tejas AESA are already under testing.

(check pg 8)
http://www.astramwp.com/adminpanel/products/1340011618_180612_IER_InitiationReport.pdf

Seems like offset deals from ELTA to manufacture T/r modules have been won by Astra microwave.

Excellent link. It shows Astra won an order despite being L2, on basis of technical competence.

Page 8 says its data supplied by company. There are errors in column 2 (repeated statements) as the CRISIL analyst was presumably confused about the technical details.

Overall, here is the data

S Band AEW&C: Astra a partner, expects orders soon, has supplied 3 units of TR module array (this can either mean 3 full scale arrays or 3 units of the series production type; we know a full scale LSTAR with 1240-1280 modules already exists).

WLR: This is the Swathi WLR which is based on the PESA RAJENDRA radar for the Akash; WLR recently cleared trials and 28 are on order; Astra will presumably make subsystems as it did for the Rajendra; WLR is being integrated (and other systems also made) at BEL. Astra says partnered in the development of the product, expected to get commercial production order soon.

WLR details: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5sP7XwykNSM/TPhPYEEyeII/AAAAAAAAC2w/z9zDg5ZBPeg/s1600/BEL+%25281%2529.JPG
Wiki writeup (pretty good): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BEL_Weapon_Locating_Radar

The MPR (Medium Power radar) being developed for the IAF with range exceeding 300 km. This is the same radar I mentioned earlier, the RESAR/MPR which is S Band.

Astra would be the designated development partner for S Band modules – I base this on the fact that they landed a similar order for the ELTA offset for the imported AESA MPRs. So once development completes, they’d probably have the series production order.

X Band LCA FCR: To my mind, this is the most pleasant surprise, based on this & Saraswat’s interview, that the LCA MK2 is to have an AESA for certain.

Astra notes that it partnered in the development of the product and two modules supplied, user is testing the same.

Saraswat says that a 1/8th array is in test at LRDE already. So thats two modules of 1/8th arrays each or a single 1/8th array which consists of two modules.

A 1/8th array would be around 125 modules. The LCA nose is sized for an array in the size of ~1000 TR modules. These would be competitive sized against worldwide peers given DRDO/Astra have access to modern fabs on a commercial basis.

So basically, the round up really makes sense…DRDO is distributing its AESA TR module production across 4 local companies. The number of programs is now at critical mass and allows for this sort of development.

AESA programs recap:

Tactical ground based (IAF surveillance and FCR requirements) Aslesha, MPR, LLTR – 3 S Band AESAs for different requirements

Airborne (IAF): AEW&C (S Band), LCA FCR (X Band) – 2 AESAs

BMD program – LRTR1 (L band), MFCR (S Band), LRTR 2 (band u/k) – 3 AESAs

So 8 programs in all; of which 3 are at production status (Aslesha, LRTR1, MFCR)

There are presumably several other programs we don’t know about as they haven’t been declassified.

There is also a significant AESA drive in EW systems, based on the above, its likely that even modules for EW AESAs will be made locally. The plan was to after all localize the TR module component of the MiG-29 EW suite which is currently from Italy.

That program shows up in Def Min public documentation as one of the most expensive and local production of the TR modules would explain why

BEL tendered that work to Astra microwave. Check out the link I posted earlier on Astra microwave, it has many more details.

Does that link mention BEL tendering the work? That document BTW is a great find.

There are actually 4 companies that I know of, which are working to build Tx/Rx modules to DRDO design, two PSU, two private (SMEs). Astra is one of the two SME’s and BEL is one of the PSUs. There is a fifth company (Private SME) that too may be picking up TR module work, but for EW systems in particular.

Sadly, whether it’s called ‘pessimism’ or not I feel the same as him there. DRDO, HAL and the like don’t have anywhere near a steady track record in delivering outside of the ballistic missile programmes. Delays and cost overruns are the rule rather than the exception and often by the time something is ready for induction the armed forces has already substituted an import and is not all that enthusiastic about the domestic product any more.

Given the realities in almost every field in India except defence(automotives, for instance) I very much believe the government should cultivate the private sector with the same fervour with which it funds the DRDO and Defence PSUs.

This post actually shows that you know little about the Indian sector & that you really don’t have objective criteria for evaluating its progress. If you had, you would never have made this statement “DRDO, HAL and the like don’t have anywhere near a steady track record in delivering outside of the ballistic missile programme”..etc.

First mistake is to compare DRDO and HAL and put them in the same group. They are not. DRDO is a design & development agency with limited production capabilities. HAL is basically a manufacturing shop which has been gradually building up R&D capabilities but has a long way to go.

Second, is the comment about the BM program etc. It pretty much shows you have not been following the remarkable successes DRDO et al have achieved in electronic systems design & development, doing sanction busting and with partners like BEL, ECIL etc.

Today, virtually all of the IAF’s ESM fit is localized – with all onboard RWR/ESM fits from DRDO. The jammer segment is going the same way. In radars, starting from scratch, the IAF now has local alternatives and has placed sufficient orders for 2D Gapfillers, 3D LLTRs, 3D LLLWRs and FCRs. The ongoing programmes for MPR, AESA LLTR & AEW&C round off that segment.

In the Navy, the IN has gone for an all Indian sonar fit with the HUMSA series which are the bread and butter sonars. The ESM sit is now completely indigenized with Ajanta, Ellora and advanced variants on all ships, supplanting even the interim Israeli fits. The advanced variants eg Varuna, capable of detecting and classifying exotic signals eg LPI are also ready and on order. Constant upgrades are done without fuss, eg radar fingerprinting for further fine grain analysis. In advanced systems, Nagin is now under final trials & due this year (despite assorted gasbag bloggers assuming it got cancelled due to lack of in your face publicity). For submarines, the Navy is now using USHUS variants & local ESM as well.

For the Army, the DRDO’s 2D LLLWR & 3D TCR are both ready and on significant order. Both projects completed without fuss & without delay.
The futuristic radars developed for the IAF and in advanced prototyping today will clearly have IA applications as well, when suitably repackaged for higher mobility vehicles and smaller footprint even at marginal reduction in performance. The Army’s first sector level EW system, the Samyukta has elicited very positive reviews and its classified follow on is well under development.

What you & most other chaps who don’t dig beyond the simplistic media reports fail to understand is that product development always depends on having a basis of tried and tested tech., which you can then iteratively build on. As such first-in-class systems are always the tough ones and take time with attendant cost issues. In India, most of our initial programs were budgeted for without taking any sanctions or cartels into account. As such whenever products were developed, sanctions or deliberate delays were introduced to kill projects. The much ballyhooed WLR for the Army, held up as an example of incompetence and delay was one such. Its critical phase shifter was unavailable in India, and just like other radar manufacturers DRDO hoped to bid for series versions from the handful of manufacturers in the west. It was denied & the DRDO developed better versions working with CEL & IIT Delhi.

The point is this sort of deliberate targeting of Indian defence industry, has been all too common. While it has introduced time & cost delay into many projects, along with the technical challenges of even system level development, overall India is stronger for it.

The IA & IAF are often unenthusiastic about local efforts because they simply lack a product development culture. The average officer wants quick imports based on 5 year plans. In contrast, an average weapons program can run somewhere between 5-10 years, with complex ones hitting 15-20 plus. Let alone system of systems programs like combat aircraft etc. To achieve such programs, the perspective planning for such products has to be perfect or near so, with clear requirements, limited mission and requirements creep, and asking for achievable requirements based on industrial assessment. Lacking the ability to do this, IA & IAF staff requirements are often reactive and poorly made out and then develop further over time, which leads to developmental delay on top of technology issues. In contrast, Navy has multiple design houses- WEESE, Naval Architects/Designers each with specific ownership of specific programs. They ensure products are “owned” by the Navy from day 1 and ensure a proper developmental path is made available even with MK1 to MK2 to MK3 transitions. They have done this despite working with arguably the most trenchant of Indian DPSUs, the shipyards. They have gone so far as to identify and convince specific companies working in different fields to take up marine engineering and production projects. Naval project managers are part of a rigorous system, which rotates them to ensure honesty and minimize bias, and well aware of their roles and responsibilities to ensure product/program success. They also have a viable career path.

In contrast, IA and IAF orphan officers in defence R&D, and if the former take their job too passionately, then they are oft treated with disdain, and are said to have forgotten the olive green (an actual comment made by a general in the Army, which just shows how deep the attitude problem is). People like Rajkumar who headed the LCA team were deliberately passed over for promotion as the IAF regarded the LCA as an unwanted step child standing in the way of the easy imports.

This sort of disdain for the involved process of product development is the real problem. Way back in the 70’s, the Naval Chief that time, decided with his staff that future sailors needed to be multifunctional, so specific trades were created to keep apace with technology, beyond just sailing the platform. In contrast, the IA & IAF have only moved to maintainance and support of the frontline units and have completely abdicated their responsibility to the industry.

What they don’t understand is that winning products are developed on time and on budget when they follow concurrent engineering and compressed test and verification methods, without sacrificing quality. By not having a product development and test team that works with DRDO etc in the product development lifecyle, the results come in only when the final product is ready or a prototype is, is sent back for rectification and then is ready for tests only a year thence at the right weather, place etc where again staff have to be found to evaluate it. What makes the situation tragicomical, is that by then the original evaluators jump ship, moving to new positions of command or leave the service. The new evaluators come in and do an entirely new assessment.

Today, after realizing that they too have culpability, the IA/IAF depute senior staff with support staff to such roles. But again, there is no formal organization that these people are part of and their careers/roles are in flux. In many cases, they’ll have to join DRDO itself. While this is good for DRDO, it totally takes out the project ownership angle. In business, for high value add programs, senior staff is deputed to not just monitor but also to aid the program through development, by supporting it as required. This is a fundamental concept called mentorship. This is still lacking in the services beyond an ad hoc arrangement, run program by program where say the VCAS monitors the LCA. Problem is by the time this has occurred, the delays were already baked in. Such as not telling the designers which advanced missile to put in – wing redesign, asking for newer avionics after the LSP started (and to their credit they managed the new systems)…

This ad hocism is a huge challenge.

HAL is an entirely different issue altogether, with significant bureaucracy issues, and absolutely not comparable to DRDO. The latter is working on cutting edge tech., that many of its so called foreign partners (who were a good part of the tech denial regimes earlier) are now envious of it for the developments therein (e.g. the work done on the BMD system). And realize that since the organization has mastered many of the core tech., platforms, it will iteratively develop rapidly. So now, its all about the money and leveraging whatever DRDO can do for them, cheap. Costs are a huge portion of WW programs, a radar costs obscene amounts of money to develop, and the manner in which DRDO runs low cost programs is something they all are interested in & want tie ups.

The private sector today can do a lot of good in terms of manufacturing – they can and should shake up the DPSUs, but they lack R&D heavily. Its staff, a mindset and a design capability. It takes 10-15 years to grow a design engineer. They will continue to heavily rely on DRDO. But the good thing is that DRDO will at least have willing partners beyoind the handful of DPSUs who dont care whether a local product or imported product succeeds, since anyways they will make it with a fixed margin baked in..

Teer, this is an extract of an interview with Yury Beliy, General-Director of Tikhomirov-NIIP @ MAKS 2011:

I’m not absolutely certain that the Phase 1 upgrade will include a new “Bars” antenna, but the RuAF has ordered a “variant” of the “Bars” and I would doubt NIIP could achieve such an increase in reported performance by retaining the old antenna combined with ‘Irbis’ back end and software upgrades.

This is believed to be the new ‘Bars’ array (as you can see the assembly and finish is far superior to the current version):

…or maybe there’s an outside chance that a gimbal-less ‘Irbis’ array will be fitted (above right).

Hi Jo,

Thanks for that excerpt. It does seem clear that the IAF has chosen the NIIP path (at least that’s what that interview implies by stating that “we are participating in the Super 30…”) of upgrading the Bars in Phase 1 (100 fighters) and moving to an AESA for Phase 2 (170 fighters)

Coming to the pics, the first pic shows the Bars array with a protective screen which Russia has used for other arrays as well, at expos etc. Per se, the production quality remains the same. The basic design is also clearly the same – Tx/Rx “sticks” but without the inbuilt Tx electronics (i.e. still dependent on the TWT) – so without as much of the AESA advantages of increased bandwidth and high reliability, but offering AESA level sensitivity, gain etc.

Coming to which antenna will be chosen for the Phase 1 upgrade, well heres the thing. The Bars antenna actually has better performance than the Irbis in terms of gain (which means more range for less power, each db gain is worth a huge amount of Tx power!) but is heavier and has less coverage in scan angles. The Irbis is basically a Bars with a dual TWT (5Kw average vs Bars 1.2-1.4Kw), new signal processing (Solo processors) and additional hardware for the receiver (going by memory). So two approaches are possible:

– Keep the Bars antenna – upgrade/change the backend; this would actually have the Bars upgrade possibly outperform the Irbis in some features such as range etc. but still have less scan angles

– Irbis-ize the Bars, with as many common changes as possible. Similar performance levels but with some additional customization for IAF requirements

Eitherways, the planned performance for the Bars Phase 1 upgrade is a whopping 2X increase in its already powerful range, 2X the TWS targets or more, plus 2X the engaged targets as well. Plus additional A2G modes, ECCM, meteo etc.

I think with these upgrades, and a K-100 missile, the Super 30 should be fairly competitive against anything out there till the FGFA, Phase 2 Super 30’s start coming in. Add the EW upgrade, the possible sensor fusion & other enhancements, and it all adds up.

I do hope the Russian side releases some more info. As usual, the IAF is silent as can be, and mums the word!

We do know the program is on though: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pm-visit-india-to-buy-42-upgraded-sukhois/888064/

Do keep an eye out for any news

so is PGM a word?

Either way they are still in the same family as “dumb bombs” …

Why not in the same family? what would qualify them for another family?

Pathetic..

Cool research Teer. *thumbsup*

Thanks Berkut!

Any reports in the Russian press regarding the Sukhoi upgrade with India?

Here is another interesting image. This is the new Sukhoi 30 EW fit. The picture is from DARE (DRDO) exhibit at Aero India 2011.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/media/AeroIndia2009/pkartikk/AeroIndia2011/Hanger-ADA/DSC_0504.JPG.html

Now it could be they are developing something new locally or going with what exists already, in which case these are Russian jammers – SAP 14, SAP518

See ARES BLOG AWST: http://sitelife.aviationweek.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/14/14/3e3e680c-b052-435d-9e0b-9898427338a9.Full.jpg

The SAP 14 has already been exported, according to a Knirti brochure. The brochure shows the pod fitted to what it describes as an Su-30MKI (pictured below). The aircraft, side number 02, is believed to have been involved in the Su-30MKI development for India, suggesting that the SAP 14 may have at least been on offer.

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Su-35S-Flanker.html

http://www.ausairpower.net/KNIRTI-SAP-14-SJ-Pod-VVK-1S.jpg
http://www.ausairpower.net/KNIRTI-SAP-518-ECM-Pod-VVK-1S.jpg

The heavyweight high power KNIRTI SAP-14 Support Jammer ECM pod is a Russian analogue to the US ALQ-99E pod carried on the EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler. It was developed for Flanker family aircraft and is carried on a large centreline pylon. To date little has been disclosed about this design, but it has been observed on the Su-30MK Flanker G/H and Su-34 Fullback. It operates between 1 GHz and 4 GHz (© 2009 Vitaliy V. Kuzmin).

The KNIRTI SAP-518 ECM pod is a new technology replacement for the established L005 Sorbstiya series wingtip ECM pods. It operates between 5 GHz and 18 GHz (© 2009 Vitaliy V. Kuzmin).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_spectrum#IEEE_US

1-18 Ghz covers the bulk of most deployed military surveillance, fire control radars and seekers as well. Those large apertures suggest high ERP and coverage.

Any ideas? Has KNIRTI released anything in the press?

Those dual MFD’s were not the easiest thing to locate even on a 20 inch monitor 😮

Thanks. If one keeps their eyes open, a lot of interesting stuff is available in open sight.

Take this June 2003 pdf of DRDO radar tech for instance – it shows how mature the org was in the domain even 9 years back but the interesting snippet. See page 7 with the picture of the Near Field Test Range. That antenna being tested there is clearly the LRTR for BMD, even when this program became pretty well known, there were no images of the LRTR available in public…

Ok, proof that the Super 30 upgrade (also referred to as the Su-30 avionics upgrade) will have significant commonalities with the Su-35 program.

http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/nl/2012/NL_April_2012_web.pdf

Go to Page 12. Check out the image of the Su-30 cockpit rig for avionics integration at DARE, Bangalore. Same layout with the characteristic dual MFDs of the Su-35. Same simulator is seen in the June issue with another senior IAF person visiting the facility.

DARE is the DRDO lab which deals with fighter aircraft mission avionics (mission computers, cockpit displays and self protection suites).

Also shows the program is fairly advanced and is proceeding without fuss with the work clearly preceding the formal sign off. The deal was formally signed after the Indian PM visited Russia in December.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pm-visit-india-to-buy-42-upgraded-sukhois/888064/

So far, what we now know:

-Some 100 aircraft to be upgraded, the first 50 plus the new 42 delivered.

-Joint responsibility: Overall architecture, avionics/cockpit glass layout with new MFDs, improved HOTAS etc, stealth features added

– India: DRDO/HAL – an Integrated Mission computing suite, new radios (probably the software defined suite developed at HAL), new datalinks, an improved EW suite (wingtip jammers + MAWS/LWS – element may come from Russia), new mission software, launcher for Brahmos/Nirbhay, Astra BVR, Nirbhay cruise missile (first launch due in 2012)

– Russia: Structural modifications for stealth, and aircraft to carry Brahmos (Sukhoi corp), internal improvements (possibly new APU+ECS) for higher power electronics, newer radar from NIIP – in Phase 1, Irbis level upgraded Bars, in Phase 2 AESA, newer weaponry- RVV-SD, RVV-MD mentioned, K-100 missiles (AWST). Su-35 mission software (e.g. sensor fusion is a possible). AWST and others (http://defencenewsofindia.blogspot.in/2011_08_01_archive.html)have mentioned that India may acquire the Zhuk-AE for the upgrade, but NIIP has been confident that its proposal (heavily improved PESA for phase 1 and AESA in the next) would succeed based on the maturity of NIIP PESAs plus performance still available, Indian investment in Bars etc. Also possible that a variant of the NIIP AESA for the PAKFA is to be provided in Phase 1 itself.
NIIP offers TWT upgrade of 5kw (same as Irbis) for current Bars and notes range increase of 2X. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mDvQ8xYRdSI/SpZW2Bg-eNI/AAAAAAAAAN4/je_NfidvKRs/s1600-h/27.08.2009+11-00-29_0021.jpg

The rest of the 170 aircraft will be upgraded to a revised standard based on technology developed for the PAKFA/FGFA.

Prototypes ready for trials by 2016, with deliveries to commence by 2018.

Overall, a pretty powerful upgrade. Super 30’s with the Rafale, LCA, Upg MiG-29/Mirage/Jaguars are more than enough for the IAF to hold its own till the FGFA arrives.