In a boost to defence exports, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) won a $40 mn order for supplying four Weapon Locating Radars (WLR) to Armenia beating firms from Russia and Poland in the competition.

We won a competitive bid for supplying four Swathi WLR worth $40 mn deal to Armenia and the deal has been signed, a defence source said.

Swathi WLR was indigenously developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and manufactured by BEL.

It is an electronically scanned phased array radar and automatically locates hostile artillery, mortars and rocket launchers and tracks friendly fire to locate the impact point of friendly artillery fire to issue necessary corrections.

It is interesting to note that during the Kargil conflict in 1999, Indian Army faced limitations as it did not have any WLRs and they were the first weapon systems procured from the U.S. once the defence sales commenced a few years later.

According to the DRDO, the radar is designed to detect projectiles with small cross section across the battle space horizon, and has the capability to handle simultaneous fire from weapons deployed at multiple locations.

“The radar uses advanced signal processing techniques for detection and tracking projectiles in the presence of ground, weather clutter and other forms of interference in Electronic Warfare scenario,” the DRDO website says.