TwInvis detected 2 F-35s around the Berlin Air show. Although they had their civilian radar emission turned on, detecting one of the most capable stealth-fighters is still a impressive feat. 👏
That's a genious idea. If there are no nearby radio/TV stations in wartime the system would no longer work, but I suppose it would be easy to just set up your own cheap, disposable "pirate radio stations" with commercial off-the-shelf components (just a generator and a powerful radio transmitter sitting in an empty field) to provide the radiation source. That would force the enemy to try to destroy them, and continuously sending specialized SEAD/DEAD aircraft into harm's way to destroy the cheap transmitters with expensive anti-radiation missiles is almost certainly much, much more expensive for the enemy than the cost of replacing them.
Interessant! Does this work as target tracking radar (Zielverfolgungsradar) also and if so, roughly for what kind of time and location resolution? And with what kind of weapon systems (or not)? And for what kind of targets (or not)? (The video mentioned 0.5 sec. resolution; for how long should the target [not] keep its predictable path?)
Thanks for the questions! What can be said is that there is potential under certain conditions to act as a target tracking system in combination with seeker head effectors.
Amazing. But it depends on other signals being there, which might not always be the case. I wonder if this system can also make use of jammer signals, own and foreign. I hope Western forces are equipped with enough of these and more.
Danke für dein Interesse, Alex! Grundsätzlich ist bereits ein TwInvis-Empfänger ausreichend. Durch den strategischen Einsatz weiterer Einheiten lässt sich aber natürlich ein deutlich größeres Gebiet abdecken.
@@HENSOLDT Die Frage gubg wohl nicht in Richtung größerer Reichweite, sondern wie aus dem Azimut einer einzigen Peilstation die Position des FLugzeug ermittelt wird.
Thanks for your question! You are right. In general: the more broadcast transmitters there are and the higher their output power is, the better the horizontal and vertical range and accuracy get. Hence this technology has limits where there is no such illumination. This can often be compensated by either install cooperative transmitters or operate several Twinvis stations being interconnected.
You mention countermeasure resistance but I have to believe there are ways around this. You have to know things about the location of transmitters and their waveforms. Broad spectrum jamming in austere envs probably wouldn't make this very useful compared to traditional active sets with em con measures. Low observability aircraft typically dont operate without some sort of diversionary or ew support anyway.
Thank you very much for your comment! Countermeasures can target the Tx or the Rx side. Tx: destroying is a costly and politically difficult act. Jamming is difficult too: try to be stronger than several Tx of x kW CW output in an area of 50.000 sqkm. Rx side: Jamming can be far less powerful if you happen to know a passive radar’s position. But that’s not going to help you for the sensor 15km away that you might not be aware of. EW: Stealthy aircraft in final stage of missions get silent. All EW Rx turn blind. That’s where passive radar maintains a track and remains silent itself.
I wonder whether we will get future generations of passive radar that are sensitive enough to not even need man-made ambient radiation noise, but can scan the Cosmic Background Radiation. I imagine to such a radar, stealth planes would be even more visible than regular planes, because of their EM absorbing surfaces. They would create a darker and clearer shadow/hole in the background radiation.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! To make passive radar (multistatic radar) work, a defined source of radiation is needed. This includes knowledge about the waveform to differentiate from clutter/noise and other radiation sources, the information about the transmitter location, and last but not least a minimum signal strength that allows the reflection of an object to be strong enough to be received by the passive radar sensor(s). All those preconditions are not met with cosmic background radiation. So, for the next decades we are quite certain to say that this radiation will not be usable for passive radar. But who knows what future generations and engineers will make of it ;)
@@HENSOLDT Thanks for the reply. I guess the idea behind a passive radar utilizing cosmic (and artificial) background radiation would be that it doesn't look for reflections, but for a lack of signals. With other words for shadows or holes in the white noise. That would really be the "holy grail" of detection and location technology, because there would be no way of hiding from it. Stealthy objects that absorb radiation would even be easier to detect for that kind of technology, because they would cast "clearer, sharper" shadows than regular objects. And I don't think that idea is as unrealistic and as "science fiction" as one might think. Basically all you would need to do is to use a very sensitive antennae and then do something like negative photography in the electro-magnetic spectrum, looking for moving spots from where less radiation reaches the antennae than from the surroundings. From there it is basically just a matter of making the system sensitive and high resolution enough to find small, aircraft sized shadows in the white noise background.
I dont have a good knowledge about radars so i might be wrong!But i have a doubt it is that the passive radar uses TV radio to bounce off of stealth aircraft but the stealth aircraft can reflect it away or absorb it.If the TV signals show up on the f 35s or f 22s rwr(I am not sure if they would show up.I might be wrong) won't they know which direction its coming from and go and destroy the TV station or transmitter thus making the passive radar less effective because now it can only pick up radar signals from the radars of the stealth aircraft which are lpi so the chance of being able to pick up a stealth aircrafts signature is low.And i am not sure but i think the range is short on these tv transmitters.I would like to be proven wrong!
Hi , I think they already do that . They use planes with equipment to neutralize radio and TV emissions. Planes with embedded technology costing hundreds of millions of dollars to do this "Scrambling" of FM signals, for example. Perhaps it is to bar the use of these radio frequencies and thus make it impossible for Passive Radar to detect these signals.
Thanks for your contribution! Low observable objects have - among other measures - coatings that absorb electromagnetic radiation of certain frequencies. Radio broadcasting and terrestrial television frequencies are below the threshold the coatings are effective, therefore reflection is comparable to objects without low observable measures. Transmitter positions on the ground are usually known indeed. But even though they could be taken out, the threshold to do so is very high, as it’s civil infrastructure on your own territory as well on the opponents side. Passive radar operates independent from radiation originating from the object to be tracked. Achievable tracking ranges vary with transmitter strengths and numbers as well as object size. Maximum range is approx. 250km.
Well, classic, monostatic radars make sense where no multistatic setup is possible. Also, there are enough scenarios where the value of having an active radar with very special capabilities easily outweighs the downsides of being vulnerable due to the own transmitter. Nevertheless, we agree: When there is a chance for exploiting broadcast transmitters it would be weird not to consider passive radar technology.
@@HENSOLDT "monostatic radars" will become more vulnerable over time with new loitering drones, Ukraine has demonstrated that cheap drones can do serious harm, the trick I suspect is going to be making a distributed/dispersed "monostatic radar" to mitigate this
Thanks for your question! Broadcast transmitters - being the illumination source for passive radar - will always be visible to signal intelligence (SIGINT) systems. Whereas passive radar is fully invisible to all SIGINT systems, as it is only a receiving system and does not emit any radiation strong enough to be picked up by SIGINT systems.
Let´s make an analogy: You are using your eyes to look at things being illuminated by the sun or other light sources like light bulbs. Would you call your eyes “active”? Your eyes are only receiving light and do not emit it. This very same thing applies to passive radar. We hope this explanation helps :)
Fairly impressive system, bit slow and outdated. Nevertheless still very nice system. If I may, don't fall into same bs as others did. "Passive" radar is not an instant miracle. Impressive feat of technology for sure. But I just don't get the overblown marketing.
TwInvis detected 2 F-35s around the Berlin Air show. Although they had their civilian radar emission turned on, detecting one of the most capable stealth-fighters is still a impressive feat. 👏
Good memories! :)
Source?
Most search and tracking radar can easily observe F35. The only military the Americans defeated in the last 80 years where starving Iraqis.
Creio que a furtividade exagerada do f35 seja pura propaganda americana!
I believe that the f35's exaggerated stealth is pure American advertising!
@@Husker513 what's wrong with you? The DEVELOPER HIMSELF confirmed it by posting 'good memories' and you write nonesense like 'source?' 🤦
That's a genious idea. If there are no nearby radio/TV stations in wartime the system would no longer work, but I suppose it would be easy to just set up your own cheap, disposable "pirate radio stations" with commercial off-the-shelf components (just a generator and a powerful radio transmitter sitting in an empty field) to provide the radiation source. That would force the enemy to try to destroy them, and continuously sending specialized SEAD/DEAD aircraft into harm's way to destroy the cheap transmitters with expensive anti-radiation missiles is almost certainly much, much more expensive for the enemy than the cost of replacing them.
Seems to be a great System. Good luck with it!
Using existing radio signals to locate bounces is a fantastic idea.
Interessant! Does this work as target tracking radar (Zielverfolgungsradar) also and if so, roughly for what kind of time and location resolution? And with what kind of weapon systems (or not)? And for what kind of targets (or not)? (The video mentioned 0.5 sec. resolution; for how long should the target [not] keep its predictable path?)
Thanks for the questions! What can be said is that there is potential under certain conditions to act as a target tracking system in combination with seeker head effectors.
Amazing. But it depends on other signals being there, which might not always be the case. I wonder if this system can also make use of jammer signals, own and foreign.
I hope Western forces are equipped with enough of these and more.
Werden die reflektierten Emissionen von mehreren TwInvis-Empfängern trianguliert oder handelt es sich hier um ein "Standalone" System?
Danke für dein Interesse, Alex! Grundsätzlich ist bereits ein TwInvis-Empfänger ausreichend. Durch den strategischen Einsatz weiterer Einheiten lässt sich aber natürlich ein deutlich größeres Gebiet abdecken.
@@HENSOLDT Die Frage gubg wohl nicht in Richtung größerer Reichweite, sondern wie aus dem Azimut einer einzigen Peilstation die Position des FLugzeug ermittelt wird.
I presumme that the range and alt would be correlated with the range//intensity of the TV/broadcast signal right?
Thanks for your question! You are right. In general: the more broadcast transmitters there are and the higher their output power is, the better the horizontal and vertical range and accuracy get. Hence this technology has limits where there is no such illumination. This can often be compensated by either install cooperative transmitters or operate several Twinvis stations being interconnected.
@@HENSOLDT Cool stuff! Thanks for the response!
You mention countermeasure resistance but I have to believe there are ways around this. You have to know things about the location of transmitters and their waveforms. Broad spectrum jamming in austere envs probably wouldn't make this very useful compared to traditional active sets with em con measures. Low observability aircraft typically dont operate without some sort of diversionary or ew support anyway.
Thank you very much for your comment! Countermeasures can target the Tx or the Rx side. Tx: destroying is a costly and politically difficult act. Jamming is difficult too: try to be stronger than several Tx of x kW CW output in an area of 50.000 sqkm. Rx side: Jamming can be far less powerful if you happen to know a passive radar’s position. But that’s not going to help you for the sensor 15km away that you might not be aware of. EW: Stealthy aircraft in final stage of missions get silent. All EW Rx turn blind. That’s where passive radar maintains a track and remains silent itself.
Many make passive radars.
I wonder whether we will get future generations of passive radar that are sensitive enough to not even need man-made ambient radiation noise, but can scan the Cosmic Background Radiation.
I imagine to such a radar, stealth planes would be even more visible than regular planes, because of their EM absorbing surfaces. They would create a darker and clearer shadow/hole in the background radiation.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! To make passive radar (multistatic radar) work, a defined source of radiation is needed. This includes knowledge about the waveform to differentiate from clutter/noise and other radiation sources, the information about the transmitter location, and last but not least a minimum signal strength that allows the reflection of an object to be strong enough to be received by the passive radar sensor(s). All those preconditions are not met with cosmic background radiation. So, for the next decades we are quite certain to say that this radiation will not be usable for passive radar. But who knows what future generations and engineers will make of it ;)
@@HENSOLDT Thanks for the reply.
I guess the idea behind a passive radar utilizing cosmic (and artificial) background radiation would be that it doesn't look for reflections, but for a lack of signals. With other words for shadows or holes in the white noise.
That would really be the "holy grail" of detection and location technology, because there would be no way of hiding from it. Stealthy objects that absorb radiation would even be easier to detect for that kind of technology, because they would cast "clearer, sharper" shadows than regular objects.
And I don't think that idea is as unrealistic and as "science fiction" as one might think. Basically all you would need to do is to use a very sensitive antennae and then do something like negative photography in the electro-magnetic spectrum, looking for moving spots from where less radiation reaches the antennae than from the surroundings.
From there it is basically just a matter of making the system sensitive and high resolution enough to find small, aircraft sized shadows in the white noise background.
@@TrangleCThen in a way the countermeasure would be for objects to try to generate natural noise in the correct way unnaturally.
I dont have a good knowledge about radars so i might be wrong!But i have a doubt it is that the passive radar uses TV radio to bounce off of stealth aircraft but the stealth aircraft can reflect it away or absorb it.If the TV signals show up on the f 35s or f 22s rwr(I am not sure if they would show up.I might be wrong) won't they know which direction its coming from and go and destroy the TV station or transmitter thus making the passive radar less effective because now it can only pick up radar signals from the radars of the stealth aircraft which are lpi so the chance of being able to pick up a stealth aircrafts signature is low.And i am not sure but i think the range is short on these tv transmitters.I would like to be proven wrong!
Hi , I think they already do that . They use planes with equipment to neutralize radio and TV emissions. Planes with embedded technology costing hundreds of millions of dollars to do this "Scrambling" of FM signals, for example. Perhaps it is to bar the use of these radio frequencies and thus make it impossible for Passive Radar to detect these signals.
Thanks for your contribution! Low observable objects have - among other measures - coatings that absorb electromagnetic radiation of certain frequencies. Radio broadcasting and terrestrial television frequencies are below the threshold the coatings are effective, therefore reflection is comparable to objects without low observable measures. Transmitter positions on the ground are usually known indeed. But even though they could be taken out, the threshold to do so is very high, as it’s civil infrastructure on your own territory as well on the opponents side. Passive radar operates independent from radiation originating from the object to be tracked. Achievable tracking ranges vary with transmitter strengths and numbers as well as object size. Maximum range is approx. 250km.
@@HENSOLDT can this passive radar be effective against stealth? like can it track stealth aircraft?
yes, at the berlin air show exhibition HENSOLDT managed to track two f-35 stealth fighter jets without any problems@@james-ql8gk
Why do you need 16 FM transmitter antennas then (2:08)?
coulda sold this idea higher! now many people knows it
very interesting piece of technology
I'll take one, and just mount it on my house.
can this track a stealth aircraft ?
Yes, multistatic radars exploiting broadcast frequencies can track aircraft with low observability better than classic monostatic radars.
about time, the whole radar emitter at the expensive receiver thing was always a bit dumb
Well, classic, monostatic radars make sense where no multistatic setup is possible. Also, there are enough scenarios where the value of having an active radar with very special capabilities easily outweighs the downsides of being vulnerable due to the own transmitter. Nevertheless, we agree: When there is a chance for exploiting broadcast transmitters it would be weird not to consider passive radar technology.
@@HENSOLDT "monostatic radars" will become more vulnerable over time with new loitering drones, Ukraine has demonstrated that cheap drones can do serious harm, the trick I suspect is going to be making a distributed/dispersed "monostatic radar" to mitigate this
How can it avoid Awacs?
Thanks for your question! Broadcast transmitters - being the illumination source for passive radar - will always be visible to signal intelligence (SIGINT) systems. Whereas passive radar is fully invisible to all SIGINT systems, as it is only a receiving system and does not emit any radiation strong enough to be picked up by SIGINT systems.
@@HENSOLDT Thank you.
German Engineering!!
Beeindruckend
top!
You are using a transmitter. So it is not really passive?
Let´s make an analogy: You are using your eyes to look at things being illuminated by the sun or other light sources like light bulbs. Would you call your eyes “active”? Your eyes are only receiving light and do not emit it. This very same thing applies to passive radar. We hope this explanation helps :)
now I get it
Fairly impressive system, bit slow and outdated. Nevertheless still very nice system. If I may, don't fall into same bs as others did. "Passive" radar is not an instant miracle. Impressive feat of technology for sure. But I just don't get the overblown marketing.