Group : Radar Systems
Status : Under Development
Origin : Russia
Contractor : RTI Systems
Initial Operational Capability (IOC) : 2020
Total Production : ?

The Tropa, Path or Trail in Russian, is an innovative radar system developed by OKB Planeta, a subsidiary of RTI Systems, to detect the presence of aircraft without relying on radar emissions. The system uses the existing military and civilian telecommunications infrastructure to detect and determine the position of manned and unmanned platforms without emitting radiation that would reveal the Tropa system location. The system uses reflections on TV broadcast and communications towers to determine the position of an airborne object while working by reception of signals without emitting anything. The system was successfully tested detecting an airborne object at 150 kilometers in the Russian city of Tver utilizing the local communications towers. The Tropa system also described as a passive radar system was unveiled in late June 2019 and is expected to become an alternative to conventional radar systems specially with confronting foes that rely on the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) including radar stations. In that sense the Tropa radar system is highly survivable against a superior enemy with state-of-the-art SEAD capabilities.