Russian air surveillance radars


This is an overview of Russian early warning radars for air surveillance, and related design bureaus.

NNIIRT

The Nizhny Novgorod Research Institute of Radio Engineering has since 1948 developed a number of radars. These were mainly radars in the VHF-band, and many of which featured developments in technology that represented "first offs" in the Soviet Union. Innovations include the first Soviet air surveillance radar with a circular scan: the P-8 Volga in 1950, the first 3D radar: the 5N69 Salute in 1975, and in 1982 the first VHF-band 3D-radar: the 55Zh6 Nebo. Other innovations were radars with frequency hopping; the P-10 Volga A in 1953, radars with transmitter signal coherency and special features like moving target indicator ; the P-12 Yenisei in 1955 as well as the P-70 Lena-M with chirp signal modulation in 1968 or the widely used P-18 Terek in 1970.

NIIDAR

The Dalney Radiosvyazi NII company developed a number of radars from 1949 to 1959 in co-operation with the NII-20 Lianozovo electromechanical plant. However, unlike the NNIIRT, this design bureau focused on higher frequency radars like the P-20, P-30, P-30M, P-35, P-32D2 and the P-50. These radars have better accuracy and faster scan rates, and are thus more suited for ground control of fighter aircraft, which complement the lower frequency radars developed by the NNIIRT design bureau. NNIDAR has in recent years expanded their product range to include innovative radar designs like the Podsolnukh-E over-the-horizon surface-wave radar and the 29B6 Konteyner. The latter, while also being an OTH-radar, has separate locations for the transmitter and the receiver making it a bi-static system.

VNIIRT