IAI delivers new C-catcher airborne surveillance AESA radars

An image of the C-catcher ELM-2025 radar family. (IAI)

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has delivered an undisclosed number of its C-catcher airborne surveillance active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars, which allow continuous tracking of naval and land targets, an IAI executive confirmed to Janes on 13 February.

The C-catcher airborne radars, part of IAI's ELM-2025 radar family, can be attached to a variety of airborne platforms including small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and large commercial jets. Operating in X-band, the maximum detection range of the three variants of C-catcher – fixed (non-rotating) multipanel, rotating, and single unit ultra light non-rotating – is 200 n miles, according to the company. Both the multipanel and rotating radars have the capability to track while scanning up to 5,000 targets. The ultra-light non-rotating unit, which is designed for small UAVs, can track up to 2,000 targets.

An IAI executive declined to give information on the radar's electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) but confirmed that none of the radars are capable of tracking ballistic missiles.

C-catcher's power consumption, which depends on the attachment of antennas, is 1.2–4 kW for multipanel radars, 1.2–3.5 kW for rotating radars, and 0.5–1 kW for ultra-light non-rotating radars.

The C-catcher can simultaneously operate in air-to-sea, air-to-ground, and air-to-air roles. Also, the radar has the capability to operate in two modes – synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and inverse SAR (ISAR) – according to a 12 February IAI press release. Both improve target classification capabilities over previous models, with ISAR producing high-resolution 2D images of target areas, according to the executive.

For more information, please seeElta Systems awarded contract for ELM-2032 fire-control radars and EL/M-2022 series .