“The United States of America has not responded favourably to Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) requests for an insight into acclaimed Forester Foliage Penetration Radar,” S Varadarajan, Director, Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) said.
Delivering the 33rd Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Alumni Association lecture on ‘Radars for National Security,’ he said the DRDO was trying to develop foliage penetration radars with the help of other countries.
He invited academia and industry to work on the development of these radars.
“Uncle Sam (USA) has not given us favourable responses when we tried. It is the only country with Forester. We are interested to discuss the matter with academia and industry. Institutes like the IISc can work on this. It is a very advancing field in imaging with great prospects,” Varadarajan said, adding that India’s radar technology was on a par with its global counterparts.
“In the 1990s, we had a technology gap of 15 years. With the development of the passive phased array Rajendra radar, we close this gap to about 7 years. Today, with a host of radars catering to the Army, Navy and Air Force, I am proud to say that we are on a par,” he said.
Lack of will in bureaucracy has prevented India’s acclaimed battlefield surveillance radar system (BFSR) being shared with South Korea and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Varadarajan said.
He added that the LRDE was also working on wall imaging radars to detect human signatures through walls.
“Academics can contribute for this as well. I have seen that Israel has one but it has its own problems. We are pushing with Indian Institute of Technology, Madras for research into wall imaging radars,” he said.
His laboratory is working on detection of micro-movement Dopplers based on respiratory chest movement and heart beats in the event that the human is in a still position, he explained. “We expect challenges with this,” he said.