The
United States Army tactical reconnaissance and counter-concealment-enabled radar – TRACER is a mid-range, long wavelength
synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system that provides all-weather persistent surveillance developed by the
United States Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center's
Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate
The Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate (or I2WD) is a component of the US Army Communications-Electronics RD&E Center, based out of Aberdeen Proving Ground. Consisting of five primary divisions, I2WD forms a Research and Develop ...
. The TRACER program began in April 2007 and has been integrated onto a
C-12 Huron. In the fall of 2010, it is planned to test TRACER on
NASAs unmanned
Predator-B IKHANA, and later on
Air Warrior.
[Kushiyama, Kristen. "High-Tech Radar Cuts Through The “Foliage”." CERDEC U.S.ARMY RDECOM. United States Army, June 7, 2010. Web. June 18, 2010. .]
Due to its decreased size, weight and power consumption compared to the predecessor
foliage-penetrating radar program, or FOPEN which has been in the field since the late-90s, TRACER operates on manned and unmanned platforms and produces images on board in less than five minutes. As a follow-on to FOPEN, the TRACER system can be tailored to specific missions by providing a variety of SAR images including strip maps and spotlight and circle images.
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References
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Military radars
United States Army equipment
Synthetic aperture radar