Russia Working on Radio-photonic Radars for 6th-gen Fighter Jets and Drones

Russia is working on development of radio-photonic radars for unmanned aerial vehicles and sixth-gen fighter aircraft, capable of creating accurate target image, TASS reports.

The report says that such radars see considerably further than conventional one and will be capable of building a photographic image of the target that will be identified automatically.

"RTI Group is launching the first technological line in Russia for the production of lasers for making promising radio-photonic radars," the press office of RTI Group was quoted as saying on Monday.

The developer RTI Group is currently completing R&D work in 2018 on creating a mockup of the X-band radio-photonic radar. Following its results, specialists "will determine a principal scheme of building the radio-photonic locator," which will make it possible "in several years to build prototypes of super-light and small-size radars for unmanned aerial vehicles".

Such radars "will be able to provide radio wave imaging when an image has greater details with the possibility to identify the target type," the RTI Group press office said. It will have a considerably smaller weight and size and consume less power both on drones and aircraft.

The new station will generate a radar signal by converting photonic crystal laser energy. The production of such lasers is already beginning in Russia, the press office said.

RTI Group CEO Maxim Kuzyuk was quoted by the press office as saying that "we in RTI are seeking to make the production cycle of integral radio-photonic circuits for radars fully local to participate effectively in the rapidly developing area, which can become a guarantor of the country’s security”.