The challenges and the ways to deal with-where is airborne fire control radar going

Due to the progress of electronic technology and the practice in Gulf War, airborne fire control radar (AFCR) is facing a series challenges: (1) A big breakthrough of stealth technology has happened. Stealth aircrafts F-117 have been used successfully in the Gulf War and B-2 completed its first fly in the summer of 1989. The radar cross section of the aircraft has been reduced by 2-3 orders in comparison with a common aircraft. The stealth targets are very difficult to be detected by the AFCRs. (2) Electronic environment becomes more complicated and the ECM aspects become more important. (3) New types of air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons will force the sensors to have much better capabilities of multi-target detection and recognition/identification. (4) The cost of new AFCRs is soaring. Only a few countries can afford it. (5) The period of research and development for new sensors is very long. The author gives some possible ways to deal with above challenges: (1) multiple-sensor fusion; (2) solid state active phased array; (3) synthetic aperture radar (SAR); (4) multistatic radar; (5) modularity and commonality; and (6) gradual upgrade. Some important conclusions for dealing with the challenges are obtained through the matrix analysis