Aveillant to Test Its Radar in Suffolk

Aveillant’s extended range Holographic Radar™ is to be trialled in November at a site near Woodbridge, Suffolk, very close to where the world’s first persistent surveillance radar protected England’s shores from enemy aircraft during the Second World War.

To support requirements on spectrum efficiency, Holographic Radar™ is networked to provide next-generation regional and national high-definition volumetric coverage of airspace up to 60,000 ft.

This latest version of Aveillant’s radar solution has a range of over 20 nautical miles and demonstrates the ability of Holographic Radar™ to successfully identify and differentiate aircraft from wind turbines over offshore wind farms at a 90%+ Probability of Detection level. A 40 plus nautical mile version of Holographic Radar™ is scheduled for release in 2015.

The trial will demonstrate the extremely high performance of the radar over an offshore wind farm and how the persistent surveillance enables intelligent characterisation of the radar targets. Sea clutter, maritime vessels and aircraft will all be clearly identified and removed as appropriate from the radar display.

The principle behind Aveillant’s Holographic Radar™ technology has its foundations in the Chain Home radars that were set up along the coast of Britain during the Second World War to detect enemy aircraft and guide air defence. By using separate static transmitters and receivers, Chain Home allowed the operator to effectively analyse the threat, due to the continuous surveillance of the airspace but it required an additional manual search for range and direction measurements. Scanning (or rotating) radar was more efficient at the latter, but by limiting surveillance to brief glances in a single direction during the sweep, it sacrificed the key analytical capability. Holographic Radar™ combines the benefits of both types of system and provides a comprehensive high update rate intelligent surveillance capability.

Gordon Oswald, Chief Technology Officer, said: “Our new long range Holographic Radar™ which is set to be tested close to the site of a WWII Chain Home radar, is the most advanced radar technology today, returning to its origin. There’s a real sense of celebration with this trial as we showcase the long range intelligent monitoring capability of our system.

“This year has proven to be one of the most exciting in Aveillant’s history, and it’s not over yet as we look to the future and the exciting possibilities that Holographic Radar™ could hold for the defence, maritime and energy industries and beyond.”