The Dutch Ministry of Defence has announced the procurement of four VERA-NG passive radars from the Czech company ERA for €150 million, thus significantly contributing to the increase of Ukrainian air defence, electronic warfare (EW) and tactical situational awareness capabilities.

It is noted that ERA officials participated in both the 1st business forum between Cyprus and the Czech Republic for the development of cooperation in the field of security and defence industry as well as in DEFEA 2023.

Also read: Cyprus – Czech Republic Defence cooperation at 1st Business Forum in Cyprus

VERA-NG will be delivered to Ukraine in the near future and this is the third consecutive defence cooperation between the Netherlands and the Czech Republic with Ukraine as a background, after the procurement of 100 Czech MR-2 “Viktor” anti-aircraft systems and the modernization of 45 Czech T-72EA battle tanks in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by the Netherlands.

According to the company, the procurement in question provides an advanced and modern passive Surveillance Electronic Support Measures Tracker, designed to detect, locate, track and identify air, land and sea targets.

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Essentially, it is a multistatic radar system, which contains multiple spatially different monostatic radar systems with a common coverage area.

In particular, the VERA-NG system consists of four receivers (one central and three supplementary stations) with a coverage range of 360 degrees (azimuth), which communicate with each other via a microwave link. Additionally, the system comes with its own command station, which receives and processes all intelligence from the stations.

To locate the RF source location, the said system uses a new method to optimally estimate the source location from the Direction of Arrival (DOA) of the source signal. The direction of arrival is calculated by estimating the Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) of the source signal from each station.

Therefore, the section of the measurements of these three stations places the target in a line, providing a three-dimensional (3D) measurement of the target’s position by emitting zero electromagnetic energy, which makes it “invisible”.

Technical features of VERA-NG include:

• Operational range: up to 400 km
• Capability to track 500 targets in real time
• Target library capacity: Up to 10,000 targets
• Frequency range: 50 MHz – 18 GHz

Furthermore, the system is characterized by low energy consumption and a compact environmental footprint, while its logistical support is based on COTS (Commercial off-the-shelf) parts.

At this point, the capabilities of the system in terms of tactical flexibility must be emphasized, as it is a remote-controlled, rapid-deployment system that can operate both as a man-portable system, on the move and as a fixed one either on a tripod or as a tower with a portable mast of 12 and 25 meters.

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