Mode of Operation
Kolchuga is an electronic support measures system that employs two or more sites to locate emitters by triangulation. The system is vehicle mounted and comprises a large vertical meshed reflector, with two smaller circular parabolic dishes beneath and a pair of VHF-to-microwave log periodic antennas above. The dishes may exploit amplitude monopulse techniques for improved direction finding, whilst the angled spacing of the log-periodic antenna suggests that they may use phase interferometry to improve angle measurements. Various smaller antennas, presumably for inter-site communications are to the side and rear of the dish.
The detection range is one of the best in its class, but it is highly dependent on the emitted power of the transmitter being tracked, and requires satisfaction of the line of sight condition to at least two receiving sites for triangulation (compared with three sites for a multilateration system such as the VERA passive sensor). A Kolchuga complex can detect and locate air and surface targets and trace their movement to a range generally limited only by the common line-of-sight of the stations. Assuming no terrain masking, the line-of-sight range of a single Kolchuga station (in km) is approximately (Skolnik 1981):
where hr(km) is the height of the radar in km, and ht(km) is the height of the target in kilometres, and assuming standard atmospheric radio refraction. Thus, for a Kolchuga at 100 m altitude (above local terrain) and a target at 10 km (30 kft), the range of the system would be approximately 450 km. For targets at altitudes of 20 km (60 kft) the line of sight limitation would be 620 km—but few targets fly at such altitudes. Being line-of-sight limited, the system is an effective early warning air defense system against high power emitters.
Read more about this topic: Kolchuga Passive Sensor
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