Euroradar and Eurofighter GmbH, together with their industrial partners, have begun full scale development of latest generation Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar. Euroradar is a multi-national consortium lead by SELEX Galileo, a Finmeccanica company, alongside EADS Defence Electronics and Indra. The target in-service date for the new radar is 2015 to meet the requirements of Eurofighter Partner Nations and export customers.

Eurofighter CEO Enzo Casolini said of the decision, “This is an important step in the Eurofighter program and will ensure that Typhoon continues to lead the way as the world’s best new generation multi-role combat aircraft. In consultation with our Core Nation customers we can offer an AESA capability that far exceeds any other radar available.”

The planned AESA radar offers increased detection and tracking ranges, advanced air-to-surface capability and enhanced electronic protection measures. The radar will retain the key features of the existing Captor radar architecture in order to exploit the maturity of the current system and will use latest generation technology to provide a full complement of air-to-air and air-to-surface modes.

The large array can be accommodated easily in the Typhoon’s radome. The radar will offer customers the freedom to retrofit their existing Typhoons when required and will have significant growth potential and both existing and new customers will be able to participate in tailoring the radar to meet their individual operational requirements.