The ground radar business of Thales (Chalet ??, Stand ???) is the third-largest in the world, behind Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. The company claims to offer the largest portfolio in the world, with no fewer than 25 systems, and says it is making 80 percent of its turnover from exports. A joint venture with Raytheon provides more sales, in the field of air defense command and control systems.
In a comprehensive briefing at the company’s main site at Limours outside Paris recently, Jean-Christophe Seguineau, vice president of surface radar for Thales, told journalists that the company has no fewer than 1,300 ground and naval radars of 15 different types in service with 46 countries.
Some of these radars are 40 years old, but still giving good service after upgrades, said Seguineau. They range from original large S-band air surveillance radars such as the Palmier and Tiger-S, through the electronically scanned TRS2215 and the Master T produced at Limours, to the Master and Smart radars that introduced active arrays and solid-state transmitters in the last decade.
There was also a series of naval digital fire control systems produced at Hengelo in the Netherlands by Signaal, a site that was bought by Thales in 1990 and is still in operation.
Today, the product line is headed by the Ground Master family of fully digital surveillance radars that was launched in 2010 and took advantage of the second-generation solid-state technology of Gallium Nitride (GaN) semiconducters. One hundred of them have since been sold, according to Peter Terpstra, Thales marketing manager for air defense radars.
Terpstra claimed that these radars offer the best combination of compact antenna size with long-range detection performance. Furthermore, being S-band systems, he said that they offer better performance than higher-frequency radars in the presence of ground clutter or adverse weather (e.g. heavy rain).
According to Terpstra, another key feature of the Ground Master family is the stacked-beam mode of operation, which offers significantly more time-on-target versus a pencil-beam design. Multiple stacked beams concurrently scan the coverage in elevation and in several azimuth positions, during a single antenna rotation.
The result is better detection of slow-moving and low-altitude targets. The antenna rotation rate is six seconds–fast for this class. Clutter is automatically measured at each elevation, and Thales claims the innovative use of multiple interlaced waveforms. The advertised detection range is 250 nautical miles.
“These radars have very advanced built-in test equipment [BITE], and we’ve doubled the market standard for mean- time-between-critical-failure [MTBCF] to 3,000 hours,” Terpstra continued. All maintenance is planned, so there is no need for on-site technicians to accompany a deployment, he added.
Terptra noted that the GaN amplifiers operate at higher temperatures, and only require air (rather than water) cooling, thereby halving the system size compared with previous radars. “Everything that is needed for deployment can be carried in one adapted 20-foot container that can be carried by a C-130,” he added.
This allows for frequent truck-mounted movement between locations, and for air-transportable deployments, which together provide a “strong operational advantage,” claimed Terptra. The total weight is less than 10 metric tons. However, the GM 400 is also offered in a fixed configuration. It has been qualified for operation in arctic, desert and tropical conditions.
The smaller Ground Master 200 offers a detection range of 135 nautical miles against all types of threats including small, low-speed, and is designed for air or coastal surveillance, for countering rocket, artillery or mortar (C-RAM) attacks, or for use with weapons engagement such as surface-air missiles.
According to Terpstra, the GM 200 includes a full electronic counter measures (ECM) package and “has the highest availability in its category.” Again, it is offered in fixed or mobile configuration, the latter featuring a deployable mast that is 25 feet high when extended.
The latest product from Limours is the Ground Master 60, a highly mobile radar that can be integrated on a wide variety of wheeled armored vehicles. It is optimized for use with ground-based air defense systems, and has already been sold to a Middle East customer for use with systems firing the Mistral and Mica VL missiles. It can search for targets while on the move, and has an antenna rotation rate of 1.5 seconds. The range is about 40 nautical miles, but in other respects the performance is similar to the GM 200, according to Terpstra.
The GM 60 can also be used in a C-RAM role, using a different processing technique. Thales also offers a small C-RAM system designated GH 10 that operates in the UHF band and provides a 20- to 30-second warning against mortar attacks by siren and flashing lights. It has been combat-proven, and was deployed by the French Army in Afghanistan and Mali.