JayS wrote:
Some infor on Uttam from my side. My knowledge of avionics is limited so asked only some simple questions. I was having general chat with a young lady there who works on the SW side and with a more senior guy for few minutes. Expressed my gratitude for working for the nation's progress.
- It has ~700 TR modules
- Expected range 150km for 2m2 target size.
- Weight of entire package is 110kg.
- GaAs based. No GaN so far. Earlier GaAs was procured from US, but they sanctioned it few years ago (may be 4yr ago?) After that, now we make GaAs TRMs in India.
- They have 3 prototypes so far and by end of the year it would be 6. some more might be built.
- All SW coding is done - all modes are covered - A2A, A2G, SAR etc. What's remaining is putting it on a Fighter and test/debug. But LDRE seemed very confident that they can fully qualify Uttam on LCA within 2yrs.
- Extensive ground testing done. They had done a Tech Demo project in the past where they built small AESA radar and flight tested it on helicopter. THey have run through entire dev cycle on that TD. That's what gives them confidence on Uttam now, they told me.
- Right now it can search for up to 100 targets, track 20 and target 1 at a time. There is no particular limitation to increase number for simultaneous targeting as they have ample reserve processing power. Right now its kept at 1 for the ease of testing/debugging.
- Cooling requirement is of 3.6kW. IIRC, LCA has heat exchanger qualified for 3.5kW already (IR may remember better, its from one of the tenders). So Uttam may need some minor changes on that front.
- A lot of experience from Netra AWACS is helping the Uttam project.
I have some pictures, one with a close up view of individual TR module. I am not sure if its OK to put that one on internet. I took similar pic for Rafale Radar as well. But I will put other pics soon. Not getting time to process the pics. Need to compress them for uploading somewhere.