Theresa Hitchens
WASHINGTON — Moving away from reliance on large, ground-based radars in favor of a networked layer of smaller passive sensors could “substantially improve” US air and missile defenses and decrease vulnerability to attack, argues a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“Faced with the threat of complex and integrated attack, the existing air and missile defense architecture would benefit from a more proliferated, passive, and ultimately resilient posture. Doing so would, at long last, better align AMD [air and missile defense] operations to the strategic environment of today,” the
Called “Mesh Sensing for Air and Missile Defense,” the study is a highly technical look at how such a network of multiple passive sensors could be designed and implemented, as well as the advantages and disadvantages.
The study posits a notional network to provide coverage of Poland as an example, finding that such a network if developed would require 400 electro-optical and infrared sensors, linked together by a robust communications and power grid.
According to the study, Poland was used as a case study because its geography “offers a useful test case for considering meshed sensors, with a mix of relevant topographies and an area comparable to theaters of interest, including in the Indo-Pacific.”
Most of the US military’s current air and missile defense systems rely on a small number of high-powered radars, which pinpoint targets by blasting out and then receiving the reflections of electromagnetic waves.
Radars have many advantages, including day and night all-weather capability and long ranges. Their radiating energy, however, is increasingly easy for adversary weapon systems to detect. And the longer a radar’s range, the more power it needs and the more energy it emits.
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