{"id":29743,"date":"2018-10-31T13:04:38","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T13:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2018\/10\/31\/german-air-force-to-test-covert-radar-in-large-scale-demo-over-bavaria\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T16:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:13:15","slug":"german-air-force-to-test-covert-radar-in-large-scale-demo-over-bavaria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/intel-geoint\/sensors\/2018\/10\/31\/german-air-force-to-test-covert-radar-in-large-scale-demo-over-bavaria\/","title":{"rendered":"German Air Force to test covert radar in large-scale demo over Bavaria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

COLOGNE, Germany \u2014 The German Air Force and electronics specialist Hensoldt are gearing up to deploy a new sensing technology in southern Germany that promises to target enemy aircraft without pilots knowing they are being tracked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company first unveiled its TwInvis passive radar system at the Berlin Air Show in April, where it was rumored as a technology with the potential to detect stealthy aircraft like the F-35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upcoming test in early November is part of what the German Air Force considers a \u201cmeasuring campaign\u201d to evaluate the technology, a service spokesman said. The Air Force expects to participate in the event with aircraft and personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passive radar systems rely on commercial airwaves to watch a given airspace. In a nutshell, the sensors can compute the positions of aerial objects based only on their reflections in the buzz of broadcast signals over populated areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lack of a dedicated emitter against which reflections are tracked in traditional radar setups means the system cannot be detected by anti-radar weapons. At the same time, a key drawback for passive radars is that they must have sufficiently strong commercial broadcast activity in the targeted area to work at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hensoldt officials told Defense News that interest from international customers in TwInvis has skyrocketed since engineers set up a large screen for Berlin airshow visitors to show tracks of nearby aircraft performing aerial maneuvers. (The U.S. Air Force did not let its two F-35 specimens at the show do flight demonstrations, leaving observers robbed of a chance to see what would actually happen in a match-up of fifth-generation stealth against passive sensing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\t