You’re keeping up with my reports better than I am! I will have to include sources today showing how SPECTRA can range missiles even if they do not have emitters.
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Source 3
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How is it measuring range passively? Stadiametric ranging? Triangulation?
It isn’t doing so passively, IR-MAWS cues the the AESA antennas that cover the aircraft spherically, and these AESA antennas send a small beam to the missile tracking its trajectory and jamming if needed. We don’t have jamming in the game but they can atleast model the part where the missiles are being tracked by the AESA antennas.
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“RF detectors” and “Passive Ranging” they don’t emit.
Passive ranging is via the RF detectors, so as they’re passive that ranging can only be for incoming active emitters.
Thales makes no claims here it is using the Jammers to range a target. Just sector coverage. Given traditional jammers are normally fairly indiscriminate in direction of jamming, sector jamming would help to solve the jamming unintended targets problem. But again no ranging capabilities.
I think you are conflating the capabilities of multiple sensors.
UV MAWS can provide an accurate bearing in azimuth and elevation.
RWR can provide passive ranging and bearing in azimuth and elevation of active emitters, as well as ident etc etc
LWR can provide accurate bearing in azimuth, elevation and range(I think).
So for a IR missile (passive threat);
MAWS sees it, RWR sees nothing, and LWR sees nothing. Fuse that together and you get IR missile alert, exact bearing in azimuth and elevation for the threat.
for a SARH/ARH (active threats);
MAWS sees it, RWR sees it and LWR doesn’t. Fuse together you get, Active missile alert, exact bearing in azimuth, elevation and passive ranging. Then the jammers should kick in cued up by the RWR.
edit; just fixed up some grammar & formatting.
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Sources specifically state SPECTRA units such as LWS, MAWS, and RWR/Active antennas share information within the units and cueing each other based on the information. It isn’t as simple as data from each of the sensors being gathered/collected and then the data plots being fused to be displayed, rather the sensors also work/cue together. The AESA antennas are specifically said to send directional beams tracking threats. We don’t have jamming, but at the very least they should track the missiles. I would note that Thales often leaves out information that their archive websites state or doesn’t leave out.*
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Tracking=/=ranging. You can track a targets position in elevation and azimuth but have no ranging information. Also a jammer doesn’t need range to target, only it’s position in elevation and azimuth.
Right and exactly zero of those sensors is ranging a passive threat. You can share passive ranging from the rwr to inform the jammer should that be needed. But it’s an RF jamming system, it doesn’t need range data.
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True, I’ll have to make sure the report includes sources stating ranging.
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We have range indicator for target now, finally
But should there be NCTR for the Rafale?
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It should however be capable of doing that in the forward sector where the radar is tracking though.
It has it in game right now, at the very least. When I took it out in test flight, it identified the MiG-15bises as such - wasn’t in the mood to play AirRB this morning so I can’t speak to peer planes, but it seems to be pretty good!
Claiming that ‘the Eurofighter has comparable sensor fusion to the Rafale’ omits the fact that the latter’s sensors have far greater functionality and more extensive data fusion. To provide some examples:
- Rafale’s radar is able to cue the TV sensor for higher precision 3D target tracking. On the other hand, PIRATE does not possess the capability to accurately track air targets.
- Eurofighter merges the outputs from all sensors to filter out any possible outliers. On the other hand the Rafale can compare and cross-reference data during the processing phase to further increase the overall accuracy of the data as opposed to mitigating outliers.
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While this is anecdotal, as someone who’s interacted with signal processing/DSP in my job, I’d like to emphasize that using one sensor’s data stream to meaningfully affect another sensor gets very difficult, very quickly. It’s not as simple as “why wouldn’t they just do the same thing on the Eurofighter, the data is there” - you need a profound amount of computing power to do real-time analysis on complex signal inputs, which scales exponentially with the number of inputs and the size of input (resolution/depth), so if the plane wasn’t designed with that in mind, retrofitting it would be a very intensive process. There’s a reason the computer module in the Rafale is so huge - I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s nearly packed full of silicon.
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That makes sense.
I believe @DirectSupport actually had a source stating that SPECTRA (which handles the data fusion) was more complex technology than the RBE2 radar. Or something a rather.
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Did you see anything in sim ?
No, but it was identified in the “radar green” text and at beyond visual range (15-20km out was what I saw, I think?) It was like the radar box with “MiG-15bis” by the box.
I also checked on the Rafael, in 3rd person its only written above the radar lock box, but not on any MFD Screen (Atleast I could not find anything regarding NCTR)
Thats not true EF Instruments are interconnected so they can talk and support each other.
Spoiler
why cant we all be friends
Translated from your own source:
The attack identification system AIS (Attack Identification System) evaluates the data collected from all sensors and creates a tactical situation picture that is displayed as standard on the middle MHDD. The advantage is that the pilot no longer has to compare individual displays with each other and deviations are also ruled out.
The individual sensors don’t ‘talk’ to each other at all. The outputs from seperate sensors are compared to (it states right there) rule out deviations.
On the other hand, the Rafale will provide the pilot with only the most accurate data by cueing seperate sensors to each other. For example, by using the TV sensor for higher precision 3D tracking than the radar which is simply not possible on the Eurofighter. Or how Spectra would be able to cue AASMs to a specific target model (i.e. an anti-air battery) without necessarily having a visual contact.
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