The German Air Force and electronics specialist Hensoldt are gearing up to deploy a new sensing technology in southern Germany that promises to target enemy aircraft without pilots knowing they are being tracked.
The company first unveiled its TwInvis passive radar system at the Berlin Air Show in April, where it was rumored as a technology with the potential to detect stealthy aircraft like the F-35.
The upcoming test in early November is part of what the German Air Force considers a “measuring campaign” to evaluate the technology, a service spokesman said. The Air Force expects to participate in the event with aircraft and personnel.
Hensoldt officials told Defense News that interest from international customers in TwInvis has skyrocketed since engineers set up a large screen for Berlin airshow visitors to show tracks of nearby aircraft performing aerial maneuvers. (The U.S. Air Force did not let its two F-35 specimens at the show do flight demonstrations, leaving observers robbed of a chance to see what would actually happen in a match-up of fifth-generation stealth against passive sensing.)
Bundeswehr officials have been working with Hensoldt on passive radar technology for several years as part of an initiative to probe an eventual acquisition by the Luftwaffe. According to the service spokesman, the technology could serve as a “gap filler” to augment the capabilities of air-surveillance systems, especially in covering low altitudes.
For the week-long test — company officials declined to give a precise date — Hensoldt will set up three passive radar receivers in the Munich area and one roughly 70 miles west, near the city of Ulm. The four sensors will allow air traffic tracking in a radius reaching north to Frankfurt in central Germany, but also include parts of Austria and Italy in the south and west, and parts of the Czech Republic in the northeast, according to the company.
“The sensors will see both the small Cessna at 500 feet, as well as the commercial airliner at 45,000 feet, or any Eurofighter in between,” Hensoldt passive radar chief Frank Bernhardt said in an interview.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/global/europe/ ... r-bavaria/Company officials also have been speaking with Bundeswehr officials about the possibility of integrating a passive radar air picture into aircraft, or using it for maritime surveillance for the German navy, especially in the Baltic Sea, Bernhardt said.
https://www.hensoldt.net/solutions/air/ ... ive-radar/
