The acquisition of the Saab Gripen fighter by the South African Air Force (SAAF) has further strengthened the country's expertise in the sphere of airborne radars, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) chief radar and electronic warfare systems engineer Francois Anderson said on Wednesday.

The Gripen is equipped with the Saab EDS (previously Ericsson) PS-05A radar. "We have more information on the PS-05A than on any other foreign radar ever acquired by South Africa," he stated.

The CSIR has decades of experience with radar in general and many years of experience with radars for fighter aircraft. Indeed, the Council is the designated defence evaluation and research institute for radar systems for the Department of Defence.

It was this existing expertise which allowed the CSIR to extract maximum benefit for the country and the SAAF from the acquisition of the PS-05A: the South African specialists knew the right questions to ask the Swedes and knew the kind of information to ask for. And, because the CSIR experts were involved in the acquisition programme from the very beginning, including during the contract negotiations, they were able to persuade the Swedes to provide all the information the South Africans desired.

During a series of visits to the then Ericsson in Sweden, the CSIR collected formal technical information and detailed notes on the PS-05A. Armed with this information, and with ITS knowledge of the Southern African environment, the CSIR was then able to request modifications to the functioning of the radar to meet South African conditions.

Thus, a weather-mapping mode was added, because of the frequency of severe thunder and hailstorms in South Africa -- nobody wants to fly a very expensive fighter through a hailstorm if it can be avoided. And the air-to-sea mode of the radar was adjusted, to cope with the significant difference in sea conditions between the Baltic Sea and the South Atlantic and South Indian Oceans.

One very important aspect of the PS-05A radar programme in South Africa is that it has resulted in the development of a team of young radar professionals in this country.

The programme has also seen the development of close and trusting relationships between the CSIR, Saab and Saab EDS, and between the CSIR, the SAAF and South Africa's defence acquisition agency, Armscor, which have helped unlock further value for South Africa.

The PS-05A is a long-range system (particularly for a fighter radar) which has air-to-air, air-to-surface (both air-to-ground and air-to-sea) and reconnaissance modes. It is a pulsed doppler, monopulse, adaptive waveform, look up/look down radar.

It provides situational awareness to the pilot, being able to detect, track and identify contacts, and it provides target acquisition and tracking, weapons guidance, radar imaging and weather mapping functions.

(Francois Anderson was addressing a session of the CSIR's Third Biennial Conference in Pretoria).