IAF Launches Mehar Baba Competition to Seek Swarm Drone Radars

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is seeking domestic development of collaborative swarm drone-based surveillance radars under the Mehar Baba Competition. The proposed system is intended to detect, track and report aerial targets in a contested environment and to send an accurate aerial picture to a centralised location.

Swarm Drone Radar Concept

A swarm drone-based radar system uses multiple drones to carry sensing and communication payloads in a distributed formation. Such a system can be configured as a large radar or a small radar, depending on operational requirements. It can also be tuned for different target sets, including stealth aircraft and hypersonic weapons.

Static Radar Limitations

Conventional ground-based early warning radars are often fixed in location and design. Many large radars operate in a specific band and have capabilities linked to their hardware configuration. A distributed drone-based radar can reduce dependence on a single static transmitter and receiver arrangement.

Operational Features

• The system is expected to move with the drones and remain harder to target than a fixed radar site.
• The system is expected to create a single radar picture from multiple airborne elements.
• The system is expected to support deployment flexibility across different terrain and mission profiles.

Technical Constraints

Drone-based radar systems require power for flight, sensing and onboard processing. They also require computational capacity for maintaining tight formation and for combining data from multiple moving platforms into one radar picture.

Mehar Baba Competition

The Mehar Baba Competition is an IAF initiative for domestic industry, academia and start-ups. It is named after Air Commodore Mehar Singh, who received the Distinguished Service Order and the IAF’s first Maha Vir Chakra. He was also the first person to land in Leh.

Radar Use In Air Defence

Radar is a radio detection system used to detect, locate and track objects by reflecting electromagnetic waves. Early warning radars form a core part of air defence networks, and mobile or distributed radar systems are used in several modern military applications.