The new defense systems incorporate existing technology to counter the threat from the small, unmanned aircraft, which are increasingly being flown over and around prohibited sites, such as nuclear power stations, political rallies, sporting arenas, and airports.
Three designs, dubbed Drone Guard, are available for short-, medium- and longer-range detection and flight disruption of drones, company officials at IAI subsidiary ELTA Systems Ltd. told IHS Jane's.
All three utilize 3-D (azimuth, elevation, and range) X-Band radars – for ground-clutter removal and separation between ground and air targets – to detect low-flying and low-speed airborne targets with a small radar cross-section, IHS Jane's reports.
The new defense systems will be unveiled later this month during the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition in South Korea.
Moti Faivelovitz, deputy director and marketing manager at ELTA, said the systems can be carried from site to site. The three models can detect drones at a range of 3 kilometers, 4.5 kilometers and 6 kilometers.
For the purpose of countering small aircraft, each of the systems has been upgraded with special detection and tracking algorithms, as well as being adapted with an electro-optic sensor for the visual identification of the target, Faivelovitz told IHS Jane's
"These track-while-scan systems don't have to stop the radar rotation to identify the target. While there are other [similar] solutions on the market, there are no 3-D and high-rate scan solutions available at such a low weight," he said.
