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The SBX is perhaps the most sophisticated long-range radar the United States possesses, and testing has cast doubt on whether it can even reliably detect missil

The SBX is perhaps the most sophisticated long-range radar the United States possesses, and testing has cast doubt on whether it can even reliably detect missiles, the application it was built for. It's pretty much still considered in testing and not an operational piece of equipment despite being 15 years old. Long-range radar is a really hard problem, the working models are so expensive than the USAF and FAA struggle to afford to install them, and the military has a long history of being, uh, optimistic about the capabilities of their radar equipment when talking to the public. Saying they can detect a softball over the horizon and then failing to detect a widebody jet at seven yards is pretty much the history of the Missile Defense Agency in a nutshell. For air space surveillance purposes, the FAA and USAF share their radar network, because neither can really afford to have their own. The radars are bespoke, mostly built by Raytheon, and replaced very infrequently (many are hitting 30 years old) due to the high cost. They struggle with detecting light aircraft and anything below 15k feet or so, which is why we need to use secondary radar for ATC purposes. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it), this is basically the only general airspace surveillance measure in the US short of getting a fighter in the air to use its targeting radar.

touisteur 5y ago
Well raytheon isn't the only provider of psr systems, just in the US. The economics of primary surveillance radars is strange. Reliable service (the war on nines), robust filtering of false alarm (even tough multi-sensor ATC trackers have made huge strides...) more and more requirements on the 'high speed + maneuvering' kinematics (replace mil psr radars in some missions) and in the 'slow or static small rcs' (drones mostly but also helps). Processing latency is getting squeezed to 'almost impossible with COTS HW' levels and regulatory requirements only increase like mad. But you're only selling & installing what, at most 100 a year? Good luck recouping any R&D. The entry in such a market is hard too, as ATC operators are conservative as hell, and Chesterton's fence tends to be respected a bit religiously by customers.

touisteur 5y ago

Well raytheon isn't the only provider of psr systems, just in the US. The economics of primary surveillance radars is strange. Reliable service (the war on nines), robust filtering of false alarm (even tough multi-sensor ATC trackers have made huge strides...) more and more requirements on the 'high speed + maneuvering' kinematics (replace mil psr radars in some missions) and in the 'slow or static small rcs' (drones mostly but also helps). Processing latency is getting squeezed to 'almost impossible with COTS HW' levels and regulatory requirements only increase like mad. But you're only selling & installing what, at most 100 a year? Good luck recouping any R&D. The entry in such a market is hard too, as ATC operators are conservative as hell, and Chesterton's fence tends to be respected a bit religiously by customers.