Search radar

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A search radar (also surveillance radar or target assignment radar ) is primarily used to record and track aircraft with the help of radar technology . Special variants can also detect targets outside the earth's atmosphere .

Military applications

Military search radars serve a variety of purposes: Detecting and tracking enemy aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles , ballistic missiles and spacecraft. Often the radar is integrated into an air defense system so that located targets can be attacked immediately. However, since a search radar is designed to search a large volume of space , it can not provide a fire control solution for many passively radar-guided anti - aircraft missiles . Therefore, the determined target data are transferred to a fire control radar , which is specialized in this task. With the new multifunctional radars based on phased array antennas (e.g. AN / SPY-1 ), however, this division of tasks is increasingly no longer necessary.

Older search radars mostly work in a low frequency range of 0.1 to 0.5 GHz , which is why they are relatively large and heavy. In addition, they can only provide very imprecise position information and are prone to cluttering . Newer systems therefore work in the range from 1 to 5 GHz, where these problems no longer play a major role. In the case of special, fixed systems, however, very low frequencies (0.005-0.05 GHz) are still used, as this enables very long ranges to be achieved. These systems include a. Überhorizont- and GCI radars, the latter are used to coordinate intercept missions.

Civil applications

Search radars are used in civil aviation to record and guide air traffic. A distinction is made between secondary and primary radars. The former can only detect aircraft that have an active transponder , while the latter can generally locate any larger flying object.

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