Bangalore: India is reviving the development of an indigenous Airborne Early Warning And Control System (AEWACS), which it had abandoned following the crash of an earlier platform in 1999, a top Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) official said today (Dec 3, 2003).

"We have submitted a proposal to build an AEWACs with the next generation active phased array radar installed on it on a smaller aircraft, unlike the rotating antenna in the earlier airborne surveillance platform (ASP)," Centre for Air Borne Systems (CABS) director K U Limaye told reporters at the International Radar Symposium India 2003.

"A proposal has been sent to Delhi," he said, when asked about the time frame for building the indigenous AEWACS system.

Limaye said the proposed airborne radar may have a range of 200 kms and may be integrated on a Brazilian Embraer 145 aircraft.

India is getting the larger Israeli Phalcon AWACS system to be integrated on a Russian IL-76 aircraft, which will have a range of about 400 kms.

The country had to source the foreign system following the crash of the Avro aircraft, in which the rotor system was mounted, at Arrakonam near Chennai in 1999, which killed eight people including scientists and Indian Air Force personnel.

"We will be using several signal processing devices, sub systems and expertise gained in the earlier ASP for our new project," Limaye, who is also the director of the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), said.

PTI