Which AESA radar fits better the JF-17 Block 3?

[The SC]

There are actually two options for an AESA radar for the JF-17 Blk 3:

1- The Chinese made KLJ-7A

And

2-The Italian made Vixen-1000E



Let's take a look on their specs:

1- KLJ-7A

For 5 m2 RCS target, the radar detecting range under air-air mode is increased by 65% to the original model (KLJ-7), compare with Israel EL/M-2302, 70% better range, compare with PS-05/A from sweden, 40% better effective range.

... much better than earlier version of ZUKE N001 of SU-27, better than N011M PESA of SU-30MKI of IAF. Considering the different standard of "detecting range" between China and Russia, which Chinese one is more strict or tough, the advantage of the detecting range of KLJ-7A in real case will be more obvious than the brochure data.

The US APG-83 radar, for Taiwan F-16V, is a kinda shrank version of APG-81 of F35, has bigger array size than KLJ-7A, but their performance are on same level.

Regarding it's a radar for mid/light fighter, but it's major performance parameters can beat some heavy fighter's radar, and also consider the array size, antena aperture and transmit power, the technology level of this radar is very close to the APG-77 of F-22, which is among the best level in the world...

........ the radar also improved the multi-target tracing ability, increased simultaneous-tracking-number from 10 to 15, and can attack 4 of them at the same time, and this performance can be upgrated when it's needed........

the radar has abundant work mode ---- scan/trace air/ground/sea target, guide missile to attack, synthetic aperture radar for map drawing, dog fight....etc. etc....
Radar modes

The active phased array technology is to KLJ-7A radar has many advantages of the predecessors are not: the type of radar is not only difficult to implement interference with traditional measures, but can use the technical characteristics of its launch antenna electronic jamming operations; , Because the radar signal transmission and reception is composed of a large number of independent transmit / receive unit, virtually improve the operational reliability of the radar, because a few of the transmitter / receiver unit failure does not affect the normal use of radar, Said that even if 30% of the transmitter / receiver unit fails, the radar system can still maintain the basic use. At the same time, the multi-unit structure of the phased array radar can make it perform many functions at the same time, so that the fighter can perform the functions of weather detection and mapping, or use the radar mode Alternating function, and executes a plurality of different contents successively in a short time.
http://errymath.blogspot.com/2016/11/klj-7a-aesa-fire-control-radar-for-jf-17.html#.WObaqbjXtBp
http://errymath.blogspot.com/2016/11/klj-7a-aesa-fire-control-radar-for-jf-17.html#.WObaqbjXtBp

Data from: Janes Defence[1]

• Range While Search (RWS)
• Velocity Search (VS)
• Single Target Track (STT)
• Track While Scan (TWS)
• Dual Target Track (DTT)
• Situational Awareness Mode (SAM)
• Air Combat Mode (ACM)(with five sub-modes)
• Real Beam Map (RBM)
• Doppler Beam Sharpening (DBS)
• Ground Moving Target Indication/Ground Moving Target Track (GMTI/GMTT)
• Air to Ground Ranging (AGR)
• Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
• Sea Single Target Track (SSTT)
• Beacon (BCN)
  

Specifications

Data from: Jane's Defence [1]

• Frequency: X band
• Range:
  • Look-up: >75 km (for RCS of 3 m2) (V1)[1] or
    130 km for RCS of 5 m2 (V1), or
    110 km (for RCS of 3 m2) (V2), or
    140-150 km for RCS of 5 m2 (V2)
  • Look-down: >35 km (for RCS of 3 m2) (V1)[1]
• Total targets tracked: 10 in TWS (Track-While-Scan) mode (V1)
• Reliability:
  • MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure): 220 hours
  • MTTR (Mean Time To Recovery): 0.5 hours
• Weight: ≤120 kg
• Volume: 0.065 m3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLJ-7
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2- Vixen-1000E

ACTIVE ELECTRONICALLY SCANNED ARRAY
(AESA) FIRE CONTROL RADAR

Vixen 1000E is a high performance AESA radar
designed for fighter/interceptor aircraft building on
over 60 years of fire control radar experience. Vixen
1000E features an innovative roll-repositionable
AESA antenna to provide a full ±100º field of regard
allowing maximum situational awareness and platform
survivability. This Wide Field of Regard (WFoR) allows
the aircraft to turn away after missile launch, whilst still
maintaining datalinks to the missile.
The highly reliable AESA transmit-receive module
technology incorporated in Vixen 1000E significantly
improves system availability leading to reduced
lifecycle costs.
Vixen 1000E is part of a family of AESA Radars
delivering greater performance and higher reliability
than comparable mechanically scanned radars and
offers all the advantages of multi-function AESA arrays
with significant through life cost savings.
KEY FEATURES
The Vixen 1000E Radar has been designed from the
outset to meet worldwide fire control radar detection
and target tracking needs combined into one efficient
modular system. The Vixen 1000E builds on common
modular units for a scaleable system architecture to
meet the needs of fire control and intercept radar
operational requirements whilst remaining resistant to
radar countermeasures.
The AESA antenna is coupled to fully digital
multi-channel exciter/receiver and processor
Line Replaceable Units (LRUs). These provide a
comprehensive mode suite which includes air-to-air,
air-to-surface, interleaved and support functions,
which can be readily adapted or extended in software
to meet future needs.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION
Frequency X Band
Scan Coverage +/- 100°
Scan Velocity Instant beam switching
Cooling Liquid and Air
Weight 215kg
Key Interfaces Ethernet, 1553B
MODES AVAILABLE
Air-to-Air Modes Search While Track
Single Target Track
Air Combat Modes HUD search
Vertical scan
Slewable scan
Boresight
Air-to-Surface modes Real beam ground map
Doppler Beam Sharpening
Sea Surface Search and Track
Ground Moving Target Indication and Track
Spotlight & Stripmap Synthetic Aperture
Radar
Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar
Imaging
Air to Surface Ranging
Interleaved Modes Customer configurable
interleaved Air & Surface modes
Support Functions Passive Search
While Track
Missile Datalinks
Cued Search
Non-Cooperative Target Recognition
Comprehensive ECCM suite

The radar makes use of AESA alert-confirm techniques
to confirm targets on first detection. This combined with optimised AESA waveforms results in increased track initiation ranges, whilst simultaneously maintaining situational awareness. The instantaneous scanning ability of the AESA also provides a comprehensive suite of interleaved air and surface modes, thus providing the pilot with all round situational awareness.

Reliability
At the core of the AESA radar design is the ability to
tolerate individual item failure. Component failures in the array result in graceful performance degradation rather than complete system failure, delivering high operational availability when compared with conventional radar systems. Significant cost benefits over the life of the system are realised due to the high reliability, increased availability and reduced maintenance requirements.

Modes and capabilities
The mode set allows the system to deliver all of the functional capabilities of a Fire Control Radar within an acceptable platform volume. This is combined with the full capabilities of a detection, tracking and prosecution system to meet the needs of emerging new world threats.
The system utilises all the benefits of an electronically scanned array to deliver:
▪▪
Significantly enhanced performance relative to similar sized systems with the same weight, volume and power
▪▪

Comparable performance to larger mechanically scanned system whilst offering reduced weight and power.

http://www.leonardocompany.com/en/-/vixen1000e

 

[CriticalThought]

There are still unknowns for me like power condition, heating, and how much of a load it puts on the aircraft's power generation.

That said, Italy will not give us their source codes, and I want PAF to take the KLJ-7A platform and implement something comparable to the Rafale and F-22. Having the source code gives us the guarantee that in war time someone can't employ things like killswitches against us. The radar is the most sensitive part of the aircraft in this respect, and it gives us the opportunity to prove our mettle against the best on the world. With the Vixen, we will be forever dependent on the manufacturer to release new features, and then we will need to pay for the upgrades as well. With the ACM saying we will be making AESA radars ourselves at PAC, the Vixen simply doesn't make any sense.

 

[The SC]

There are still unknowns for me like power condition, heating, and how much of a load it puts on the aircraft's power generation.

That said, Italy will not give us their source codes, and I want PAF to take the KLJ-7A platform and implement something comparable to the Rafale and F-22. Having the source code gives us the guarantee that in war time someone can't employ things like killswitches against us. The radar is the most sensitive part of the aircraft in this respect, and it gives us the opportunity to prove our mettle against the best on the world. With the Vixen, we will be forever dependent on the manufacturer to release new features, and then we will need to pay for the upgrades as well. With the ACM saying we will be making AESA radars ourselves at PAC, the Vixen simply doesn't make any sense.

The following article might answer your questions:

Chief Designer of KLJ-7 and 7A radar....a brief interview (more than 1000 T/R units)

At the Zhuhai Air Show in 2016, China Electronics Technology Group's 14th Research Institute brought its latest product, the KLJ-7A Airborne Active Phased Array Fire Control Radar. This is the first time in 20 years that Zhuhai Airshow has exhibited such radars and has become the focus of the air show site, attracting the audience, the media and the industry's attention.

The magazine noted in the field that the president and vice president of the Russian tihimilov apparatus institute and the chief designer of the Fazatelon Design Bureau have come to 14 booths and have been very careful to observe and learn more about the KLJ-7A Happening. The two units are Russia's main airborne fire control radar development units, and 14, is the world's few able to develop active phased array fire control radar units, we can see the industry for the KLJ-7A debut huge attention.

In order to further understand the performance of KLJ-7A radar and China's airborne fire control radar in the field of development and export situation, "modern weapons" magazine had the honor to interview the "Fierce Dragon" fighter radar system director designer Xu Jian, through his personal experience We have in-depth explanation.


Airborne radar production line exports

KLJ-7A airborne active phased array fire control radar

Zhuhai air show in the final analysis or a business platform, where the exhibition is an important factor to consider the export. According to Xu Jian, China has been in the airborne fire control radar has been exported, and far more than simply "export" so simple, whether it is bidding process, cooperation model and the story behind the impressive.

"Fierce Dragon" fighter (export model: JF-17) is the Air China and Pakistan Air Force jointly developed a light multi-functional fighter, the equipment of the radar contract competition began in 2003, 14 airborne fire control radar in a number of The selection of the test flight showed outstanding performance, with Italy, France and other units in the country stand out. In more than a decade ago, with the traditional foreign countries in the field of competition is undoubtedly embodies the 14 as "China's radar industrial birthplace," the strong strength.

Now more than ten years have passed, then what about the project? According to Xu Jian introduced in the small batch of radar after the successful delivery of foreign companies based on the idea of technological progress, follow-up radar procurement to take cooperative production methods. From 2009 onwards, 14 of the technical guidance team to take root in a country's factories, and gradually carry out the radar in the country's batch production cooperation. In order to help the country build a complete production capacity, 14 to the country to provide a large number of production, commissioning and testing equipment, so as to truly achieve all the radar components in the country's localization production vision.

Any one of the implementation of the project will not be smooth sailing, stringent requirements of users, the local hard construction conditions and the two sides of different cultures and ideas to bring the communication gap, gave the scene to bring a lot of difficulties and challenges. The entire production, process, commissioning and testing equipment for foreign personnel are the first zero distance contact, for which the Chinese experts to the country to provide high-quality training.

Xu also recalled him and the team experienced in Pakistan, a variety of breathtaking scenes: 2008, the Bama Rio Hotel big bang, when the atmosphere is very strong terror, while the Chinese engineering team is the base of the test flight; the 2009 earthquake in Pakistan In 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed, the Taliban armed threatened to retaliate, their base is not far from the country's factory, for safety, the engineering team in the base was closed a full three month. In the case of such a difficult situation, the Chinese engineering team's calm and calm to Pakistani personnel moved, they use practical action to practice the friendship between the two countries, and airborne fire control radar cooperation project is the two countries friendship enrichment and Sublimation of the witness.


What is the advantage of airborne active radar?

The Zhuhai Air Show, KLJ-7A radar in China Electronics Technology Group company theater entrance to the most prominent position, the audience into the exhibition area will be able to see it first. Reporters on the scene to see, China Electric Branch leadership to visit the guests to introduce the product is the first to introduce the KLJ-7A, the audience will be in this type of product before the stop.

Why is KLJ-7A so interesting? Speaking of this, we have to know in the rapidly changing complex combat environment, as the main battlefield to detect the perception of the battlefield situation, airborne fire control radar to complete the search, intercept, track, guide a variety of functions, is the "Air Eagle" fighter sharp Eyes, always ready to find the enemy, to give a fatal blow.

According to the working system and combat effectiveness, the development of active airborne fire control radar has undergone three stages: machine sweep pulse Doppler radar, passive phased array radar and active phased array radar. According to Xu Jian introduced, 14 of the plant such products through the same several stages.


KLJ-7A radar technology level and the United States F-22 stealth fighter APG-77 radar comparable

Nearly 30 years, 14 of the airborne radar has achieved from scratch, to reach or close to the level of foreign technology, with considerable competitiveness, not only occupy the vast majority of the domestic market share, has gradually entered International military market.

In the 1980s, there were only a few developed countries in the world who could develop airborne pulse Doppler radar, and our country was weak, and a lot of key technologies were in the initial stage. The concentration of airborne radar elite team began in 14 Research and development, the key components and modules began to break through the PD (pulse Doppler) key technology, he presided over the completion of the radar engineering design, so that the PD radar system to the Breakthrough, is a major achievement in the field of radar, China has set the field of national defense airborne radar independent research base.

Active Phased Array Fire Control Radar Each antenna unit is connected behind a T / R component, which is closer to the antenna element, eliminating the RF loss caused by the feeder network when the passive phased array radar is received and received. Therefore, the RF power High efficiency, can significantly improve the detection range. At the same time, active phased array radars use highly reliable solid-state devices to replace low-life electrical vacuum devices, improving reliability and greatly increasing maintenance intervals.

Compared with the traditional mechanical scanning radar, the active phased array radar beam is flexible, which increases the system bandwidth, and can realize the same time, space, sea, search, precision tracking, missile guidance, multi-target attack, electronic warfare, imaging Different working modes, to achieve different functions. In addition, active phased array radar also has a high data rate, stealth performance, anti-interference ability and so on.

Today, the airborne active phased array fire control radar has become the current national new fighters and the original fighter upgrade essential products.


Technical level comparable to F-22 fighter radar

According to Xu Jian introduced, the use of advanced solid-state active phased array radar technology, can be equipped with, light fighter, the main combat missions, including seizure of air power, destroy the enemy battlefield targets, destroy enemy forces; assault maritime targets, ; Destruction of the depth of the political economy and military and other important goals.

Xu Jian said, KLJ-7A to play a role first of all have to put the radar on the plane up. For the new fighter, because the design to consider the use of active radar, usually the problem is not, and for those modified aircraft will have more trouble, active radar for power and cooling requirements are higher, to adapt to the radar It is necessary to adjust the local aircraft. One of the advantages of the KLJ-7A is its low power consumption, and its power supply and cooling unit can also accommodate different cooling methods for air-cooled and air-cooled aircraft.

Customers can according to the actual situation, put forward the demand, 14 can even be tailored for its special small liquid cooling unit. Overall, KLJ-7A compact design, with a very good load-bearing platform fit.

As the core of the radar, the KLJ-7A exhibited more than a thousand T / R components, although the power consumption is low, but the overall power in the international at a high level. Xu said that all of these T / R components are all developed by 14 self-produced, and the performance and foreign quite. Thanks to this, the KLJ-7A has reliable search and multi-target tracking, open space and empty sea target search and tracking, and high resolution synthetic aperture imaging capabilities. With the weapons and fire control cross-linked to complete the guidance of advanced air-to-air missiles, with the control of artillery, combat missiles, rockets and bombs launched and delivered to achieve the same time empty and multi-target and precision targets.
Xu Jian stressed that KLJ-7A radar as a new technology of the radar system, compared to traditional radar in all aspects have been fully optimized. It can easily send out a variety of waveforms and different types of target war; radar freedom is high, wider bandwidth, the radar will not interfere with each other, while anti-jamming capability has also been greatly improved, can simultaneously deal with multiple sources of interference; The overall response speed of the transmission information is greatly improved; the detection distance is twice that of the traditional radar. While tracking a number of goals and guiding the fight. This depends mainly on the number of aircraft carrying the bomb, if the number of allow there is room for improvement.

In addition, KLJ-7A also has a strong high-gain electronic support capabilities, electronic warfare, terrain avoidance, communication and weather detection and so on. It can be said that its versatility is very prominent, such as electronic confrontation.

Xu Jian also specifically mentioned the KLJ-7A's high reliability and maintainability, the radar's average failure time is very long, do not open the radar cover in the case of radar can be self-test. Even if a failure, maintenance is also very convenient, plug-in plug-in design to ground staff 10-15 minutes to complete the disassembly operations.

When talking about KLJ-7A compared with foreign products in what position, Xu Jian said, KLJ-7A technical details can match the F-22 use APG-77 radar, the design level is also comparable with them The But we pay more attention to control costs, more cost-effective.

Looking forward to the future, with the development of microelectronics technology, digital array, software-based radar technology and advanced processing algorithms, fighter aircraft active phased array fire control radar forward ultra-wideband RF synthesis, non-cooperative target recognition, multi- In the future, airborne fire control radar will have a more flexible configuration, more powerful perception and better fit. The future of airborne fire control radar will have a more flexible configuration, more powerful perception and better fit. Sex, so that a new generation of fighters in complex geographical and threatening environment in the first enemy found, the first enemy attack, the first enemy to destroy, while ensuring their own battlefield viability.

Xu said that the current 14 has been in the development of a new generation of airborne active phased array fire control radar, in the relevant areas have made progress.

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/jf-17-thunder-multirole-fighter-thread-7.427560/page-116#post-9360161

 

[dy1022]

There are still unknowns for me like power condition, heating, and how much of a load it puts on the aircraft's power generation.

That said, Italy will not give us their source codes, and I want PAF to take the KLJ-7A platform and implement something comparable to the Rafale and F-22. Having the source code gives us the guarantee that in war time someone can't employ things like killswitches against us. The radar is the most sensitive part of the aircraft in this respect, and it gives us the opportunity to prove our mettle against the best on the world. With the Vixen, we will be forever dependent on the manufacturer to release new features, and then we will need to pay for the upgrades as well. With the ACM saying we will be making AESA radars ourselves at PAC, the Vixen simply doesn't make any sense.

KLJ-7A radar has 1000+ T/R but Rafale has 800+ T/R only.

we have 1250 -1400 T/R on J10C, 1600+ T/R on J16, 1800+ T/R on J20(Power capacity 24 KW)

For AESA radars, we only talk about Americans.

 

[Zarvan]

I talked to my relative who is engineer in Pakistan Air Force he says AESA will be Chinese and JF-17 BLOCK III will have 8 hard points

 

[DJ_Viper]

I talked to my relative who is engineer in Pakistan Air Force he says AESA will be Chinese and JF-17 BLOCK III will have 8 hard points

Will the shape / air-frame be the same? I'd expect them to use some stealthy features and some design changes with conformal fuel tanks at the least...

 

[ziaulislam]

I talked to my relative who is engineer in Pakistan Air Force he says AESA will be Chinese and JF-17 BLOCK III will have 8 hard points

we had such indications, i am curious where will be the additional hard point, under the air intake is my guess
it will also mean no major change in air frame which was expected i guess

 

[PaklovesTurkiye]

@MastanKhan @Tank131 @gambit

I talked to my relative who is engineer in Pakistan Air Force he says AESA will be Chinese and JF-17 BLOCK III will have 8 hard points

U should not leak information like this.....No?

 

[Hassan Guy]

Whichever one will be built at PAC.

 

[Path-Finder]

@MastanKhan @Tank131 @gambit



U should not leak information like this.....No?

Hazrat is the wiki leaks of PDF. the info "MUST" be taken with a pinch of salt!!

I would like to say Vixen 1000E has one advantage over the KLJ7-A and that is its ability to scan a wider area at extreme angles surely gives it an edge over KLJ.

 

[Arsalan]

we had such indications, i am curious where will be the additional hard point, under the air intake is my guess
it will also mean no major change in air frame which was expected i guess

It is under the intake/cockpit and will be for mission pods. It have been confirmed for a year or so now.

@MastanKhan @Tank131 @gambit



U should not leak information like this.....No?

This have been talked about and is knows as almost a certainty for year or so now.

 

[Zarvan]

Hazrat is the wiki leaks of PDF. the info "MUST" be taken with a pinch of salt!!

I would like to say Vixen 1000E has one advantage over the KLJ7-A and that is its ability to scan a wider area at extreme angles surely gives it an edge over KLJ.

He is my relative and he didn't me told me some big secret. In Pakistan it's also know that most likely AESA for BLOCK III is Chinese in fact current position is that two different AESA from china are Competing for BLOCK III. Although I would also like to see Italian AESA coming but sadly it's not looking very likely.

 

[RIP Pak LAW]

@MastanKhan @Tank131 @gambit



U should not leak information like this.....No?

Its ok. Don't be alarm. He also says/leaks so many other things in the air.

 

[Maxpane]

klj 7 a is better option

 

[The SC]

Hazrat is the wiki leaks of PDF. the info "MUST" be taken with a pinch of salt!!

I would like to say Vixen 1000E has one advantage over the KLJ7-A and that is its ability to scan a wider area at extreme angles surely gives it an edge over KLJ.

That advantage is very good, still there are disadvantages to it too, which are the numerous movable mechanical parts that can fail during a mission and thus needs more maintenance.. that is why the US and many other European countries as well as China and Russia prefer the fixed AESA radar because it minimises its failure possibilities to its modules and not its mechanical parts..also 360 degree situational awareness can be achieved through external sensors..