British manufacturer of e-scan radars, Blighter Surveillance Systems, has reported its first sale in India of the Blighter B400 Series E-scan micro Doppler ground surveillance radar.
The contract was awarded by system integrator Tata Power Company Limited (Strategic Engineering Division) following Blighter's success at a radar/sensor trial organized by India's border management organization in Gwalior in November/December 2016. The Blighter radars will be deployed by Tata Power during 2018 as part a Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS).
The Indian Govt.’s CIBMS programme aims to establish a multi-tier security ring - ground surveillance radar, thermal cameras, unattended ground sensors, seismic vibration systems, fences and fence protection systems - to protect the country's long international borders. Pilot projects are already underway as part of this modernization programme.
The Blighter radar's wide (20-degree) elevation beam was a key feature for the CIBMS project as it ensures that the radar can operate effectively in all terrains allowing the hills, mountains, plains, riverine territories and marshes to be scanned simultaneously, without the need to tilt the radar. The wide beam also provides detection of low flying manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and drones.
The solid-state passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radar detects small and slow-moving targets - even in cluttered environments - due to the radar's coactive frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) micro Doppler fast-scan processing. The PESA technology and wide elevation beams are a big advantage for border security and were a key factor in securing the Indian contract, as they allow the radars to be mounted on towers, buildings and other infrastructure and to surveil an area of over 3,000 km² (1,800 square miles) in just seconds.
The Blighter B400 E-scan micro Doppler radar delivers a 24 x 7 x 365 all-weather persistent surveillance capability. It can detect and track a walking person at 11km (6.8 miles), a crawler at 4.6km (2.9 miles) or a large moving vehicle at 25km (15.5 miles) and then cue a camera system to follow and identify targets. Blighter has now sold hundreds of its E-scan ground surveillance radars across 35 different countries. It has systems deployed along the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ), on the US Southern border, in several Middle Eastern countries, and now in India too.
Blighter Surveillance Systems delivers an integrated multi-sensor package to system integrators comprising the Blighter radars plus cameras, thermal imagers, trackers and software solutions. Its ITAR-free systems are used worldwide in commercial, government and defence markets in area and asset protection for national border security, homeland security, critical infrastructure protection such as oil and gas facilities, coastal surveillance, and in military applications.
