First BUR Ground Surveillance Radar Prototype Handed Over to German Armed Forces

Released on Tuesday, May 19, 2009

EADS Defence & Security (DS) will equip the German Armed Forces with a new kind of ground surveillance radar (B�R � Boden�berwachungsradar) for detecting movements on the ground and at low altitudes with a precision unmatched in the world. As the company announced on Tuesday, Defence Electronics (DE), an integrated activity of DS, today handed over the first of two system demonstrators to the German Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB) for evaluation by the Bundeswehr's Technical Centres. The delivery of approximately 80 B�R systems is scheduled to start in 2012. They are intended to close the gap in capabilities of the German Armed Forces in the area of intelligence gathering and reconnaissance. A modified version of this radar destined for civil applications such as surveillance of border regions or industrial facilities is currently under development.

"B�R is a key project for giving radar technology a secure future in Germany and for significantly enhancing protection of soldiers in the field," explains Bernd Wenzler, CEO of Defence Electronics. "Moreover, this radar is also a good example of the possibilities to use military technologies for the purpose of ensuring civil security."

The B�R system is based on the latest electronic scan control technology "AESA" (Active Electronically Scanned Array), which opens up completely new possibilities for detection and surveillance. Thanks to delay-free electronic beam control, the radar can perform multiple reconnaissance tasks at the same time, thus achieving a much greater level of efficiency and reliability in comparison to mechanically scanned radars. Each B�R system can therefore assume the tasks of several conventional radars.

B�R is suited for mobile use on the DINGO 2 armoured vehicle manufactured by the Munich-based company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann. Operation of the system and the radar is fully effected from the protected interior of the vehicle, without the crew having to leave the vehicle. The high performance of the radar is largely due to the great number of transmitter and receiver (T/R) modules in the antenna, which are made from special HF-capable materials and are developed and manufactured at Defence Electronics' Ulm site under clean-room conditions. Defence Electronics is the European pioneer of this technology supplying similar T/R modules also for other systems such as the TerraSAR Earth observation satellite and the MEADS (Medium Extended Air Defense System) air defence system.