Blighter boosts stealth of e-scan radars

Above: Blighter’s A400 aerial threat detection radars on a 6×6 Supacat.
Courtesy Blighter

According to Blighter, the growing sophistication of electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) means that demand for Low-Probability-of-Intercept (LPI) radars is increasing rapidly. The need for covert radars that can see but not be seen is particularly strong in the mobile surveillance market where stealth, information superiority and data security are paramount. 

Blighter radars, including its B400 series, feature Low-Probability-of-Intercept (LPI) waveforms, which makes the radar signal difficult to detect and therefore difficult to jam. Radar performance remains exceptional, with Blighter’s industry-leading capability in the detection and classification of people, vehicles and near-ground airborne threats.  

Mark Radford, co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) at Blighter said: “Our radars are inherently covert due to the design choices we made at the outset. We were first to market with a solid-state, non-rotating electronic scanning ground radar and our adoption of the dual antenna FMCW (frequency modulated continuous wave) architecture and the decision to operate in the Ku-band spectrum have led to an exceptionally tough, EMC robust and stealthy radar design.”

Blighter continues to fine-tune its technology to improve detection, tracking and classification of targets while staying covert. 

"For example, new fast scanning modes, featuring sub-second update rates, result in even less radar energy being transmitted in any specific direction. Furthermore, when the radar is used with BlighterNexus’ ‘Scan-Manager Application Module’, the radar can operate in a Multi-Function Radar (MFR) mode with greater randomisation of the low-power waveforms being transmitted.

“Developers of crewed and autonomous surveillance vehicles and platforms are already benefitting from Blighter’s LPI credentials,” said Mark Radford. “The radar’s solid-state design and extremely low transmit power (four watts) reduces the EMC and acoustic signatures and results in a smaller safety zone around the radar to aid sensor integration. But fundamentally, it’s the complexity and length of the combined e-scan, FMCW and Doppler chirp waveforms that make the Blighter radar so difficult to detect and jam.”

In 2025, Blighter radars were integrated into a fleet of custom-built multisensor mobile surveillance vehicles for on-the-go monitoring of a European land border; by Allen-Vanguard for its SECURIS rapid deployable counter drone system and by a SE Asian military customer for mobile border surveillance vehicles.

“Our radar is probably the stealthiest and most resilient ground radar in its class and an excellent fit for developers in the multisensor mobile surveillance space,” said Mark Radford. “A great fit for customers wanting to add a covert radar into modernisation programmes, for electric and hybrid autonomous vehicles, as well as for patrol and target designator vehicles.”

Low-Probability-of-Intercept (LPI) is a radar design concept that emerged at the end of the Cold War as radar engineers sought ways to prevent emissions from being detected by increasingly sensitive electronic support receivers. An LPI radar transmits in a way that makes its emissions extremely difficult for enemy receivers to detect, using low peak power, complex coded waveforms, frequency agility, advanced scan patterns, all combined with high processing gain and very low side lobe antennas to keep energy tightly confined to the main beam. Demand for LPI radars is being driven by a combination of threat evolution, defence modernisation and rapid advances in radar technology.

Blighter’s non-rotating, solid-state, low SWaP (size, weight and power) electronic scanning radars provide uninterrupted rapid surveillance over a wide area detecting moving vehicles/vessels, persons (including ‘crawlers’) and near ground aerial threats at ranges of up to 32 km. The radars’ compact and modular design enables rapid deployment on towers and vehicles and as dismounted portable systems on tripods.