Defensive Avionics for Fighter Aircraft - Design Considerations With Emphasis on System Installation

A fighter aircraft is vulnerable to precision radar guided weapons of the adversary Air Defences. The aircraft survivability can be enhanced only by equipping it with modern Defensive Avionics. The Defensive Avionics typically comprises wide band sensitive receivers, powerful Signal Processors and high ERP transmitters. The sensitive receivers get affected by on board transmitters and the transmitters of the Defensive Avionics may interfere with satisfactory operation of other onboard avionics. Mutual compatibility is usually ensured by suitable temporal, spectral and spatial management techniques. The restricted spaces and limited ECS for cooling the Defensive gear call for careful tradeoffs to be made. The paper addresses these considerations and tradeoffs and suggests practical solutions to ensure that Defensive Avionics suite performs its role without degrading other avionics operation.