Thanks to our readers, we now have some good photos of the Voronezh-DM radar. As far as I can tell from these photos, the size of the antenna is about 10x30 meters. The radar seems to be designed to work in meter bandwidth.
In addition to the photos, we have some information about the power consumed by the radar - the Kommersant daily reported that Voronezh-DM needs only 0.7 MWt of power for its operations, while Dnepr and Daryal consume 2 MWt and 50 MWt respectively. It is difficult to make estimates without knowing emitted power, but it seems likely that the potential of the new radar is about 40 times smaller than that of Daryal.
The photos seems to indicate that it would be relatively easy to increase the size of Voronezh-DM's antenna to 30x30 m, which would help bring the radar into the early-warning league.
And, the last but not the least, the Space Forces are not going to stop at building just one radar - the next one will be deployed near Armavir.
The book
Comments
You are right about the “raw” potential of the new radar. But it should be considered the working wavelength and the signal-processing power too.
The Daryal is old and thus, I think it works in longer wavelengths. About, signal-processing, I will assume that some updates have been introduced in Daryal LPARs., but in spite of this the new thing should have better algorithms and processors.
May you post some info about this?
Thanks.
As you can imagine, there is little information about processing algorithms and things like that. We can safely assume that the algorithms are better today (I think it was mentioned that the information processing is digital these days). But still, you have to have a certain power (potential) to search a certain sector in the sky. I'm not sure signal processing would help all that much.
Off course Pavel, but there are claims that the Dnepr is better than the Daryal. So we should assume that the Dnepr has a shorter wavelength than the Daryal?
This is a disadvantage for the Voronezh-DM respect to the Dnepr (smaller area, smaller power and larger wavelength) and then, if we exclude the Pill Box, the best Russian LPAR should be the Dnepr.
Respect to processing algorithms, it is clear than they will not publish a paper about them on the IEEE :):)
Regards.
Sorry. I inverted names. Daryalsare better than Dnpers
[Russia Upgrading Missile Warning Radar System]
A major upgrade is underway of Russia's anti-missile early warning radar system, Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying Wednesday by Interfax news agency.
Ivanov said that the space- and ground-based system, launched in 1971, was being updated to "operate as effectively as possible in any conditions, so that our radars can cover the whole area in all strategic directions," Interfax reported.
As part of the upgrade, new radars are being installed at strategic points to replace older-generation systems built in territories formerly part of the Soviet Union, but now outside Russia's borders.
The first of these radars has been installed near Saint Petersburg. "Another such radar will be built and placed in southern Russia in the near future," Ivanov said.
The new system will end reliance on older radars located outside Russia in the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, he was quoted as saying.
The radars take one and a half years to set up, Interfax reported.
Source: Agence France-Presse