Aero India 2023: 'Uttam outperformed fighter radars around the world'

All fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy will be equipped with an indigenously designed and developed Uttam radar system active electronically scanned array (AESA) in the next couple of years. The Light Combat Aircraft, which is manufactured by the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), will be the first set of fighter jets to be fitted with this system in the next six months. 

Talking to Asianet Newsable during the ongoing Aero India 2023 in Bengaluru, Director General-Electronics and Communication Systems (ECS) at the DRDO, BK Das, said: "All around the country, we were having imported radar systems. When we talk about fighters, without radar, the aircraft is aimless. So we are totally dependent on a system which is imported. Today, our lab Electronics & Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) has come up to the extent that we have developed our own radar system. That is named Uttam."

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It should be noted that the defence ministry has placed the import of radar systems on the negative list. After LCA Tejas MK1, fighter jets like Sukhoi-30MKI and Mig-29 will be integrated with the radar system. The process of integration of Uttam on these platforms will begin by 2025.

"Uttam is an active electronic surveillance radar (ESR). In the scanning, it does not have to move, but the beam moves, and it captures the data. Now, it is a configurable radar that has been flown in the LCA, and it has outperformed all its conventional competitors around the world," Dr Das said.

"So all our platforms, whether it is LCA, whether it is Mk2 or AMCA or TEDBF, all of them are going to be integrated with Uttam. Not only that, the radar will be integrated with all Russian and other fighter aircraft we have got," Dr Das said.

Talking about the export of the system, he said: "In the future, enough opportunities are there for export." Without taking the name of any country, he said: "Several countries have evinced interest in this system."

On being asked about the timeline to equip the Uttam radar with the LCA Tejas, he said: "Another six months to one year, we are going to map it with the LCA Mk1. In the next two years, our Russian aircraft will be equipped with it."

He also said that the LCA Mk2 would also be fitted with it. It is expected that the first prototype of LCA Mk2 will be rolled out in February 2024 and the first flight by 2025. Last year, the DRDO formally completed the transfer of technology (ToT) for its production HAL.

The Uttam AESA had been fully flight-tested for all air-to-air, air-to-ground, weather and terrain avoidance / following modes.

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• AESA
• Active Electronically Scanned Array
• Aero India
• Aero India 2023
• Defence
• Defence News
• HAL
• Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
• Indian Air Force
• Indian Navy
• Light Combat Aircraft
• Uttam radar system