Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) subsidiary Elta Systems has received contracts from two foreign customers for the supply of ELM-2022A advanced multi-mode airborne maritime surveillance radar.
Under the two $32m contracts, Elta Systems will develop and deliver ELM-2022A maritime patrol radars for integration aboard the customer’s maritime patrol aircraft (MPA).
IAI ELTA Systems president and corporate vice-president Nissim Hadas said: "The ELM-2022 is probably the most effective maritime surveillance radar in its class."
The radar has been designed to support a wide range of military missions, including anti-surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare, and paramilitary missions such as exclusive economic zone (EEZ) protection, littoral warfare, fisheries areas protection, search-and-rescue, and anti-drug enforcement operations.
Designed to meet military standards, the EL/M-2022A radar provides a cost-effective force-multiplier solution for operational missions and features synthetic aperture (SAR) and Doppler beam sharpening (DBS) imaging for enhanced surveillance in coastal areas.
The latest version of the radar, ELM-2022A(V3) provides detection, tracking, classification and identification of maritime and airborne targets in high-sea states and in high-density environments.
Featuring a modular hardware design, flexible avionics interfaces and in-house antenna design, the EL/M-2022A long-range radar was also qualified to military standards.
Optimised for detection of small targets in adverse sea conditions, the maritime surveillance radar also enables air-to-air operational modes by sharing a high-degree of commonality with the EL/M-2032 fire control radar.
Currently, the EL/M-2022 radars are operational onboard platforms that include Lockheed P-3 Orion, Bombardier Dash-8, Airbus Military C-295 and C-235, and Dornier 228 MPA, Eurocopter AS-365 Panther maritime helicopters and in IAI Heron- 1 maritime unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Image: Elta’s maritime patrol radar installed on IAI-built Heron UAV. Photo: courtesy of Israel Aerospace Industries.
