Missile approach warning system
Its automatic warning cues the pilot to make a defensive maneuver and deploy the available countermeasures to disrupt missile tracking.
Guided surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems were developed during World War II and began to make their presence felt in the 1950s.
This might be surprising given that radar guided SAM systems have longer engagement ranges, are faster, have higher maneuvering potential, carry larger warheads and are equipped with proximity fuzes.
Substantial quantities are available and affordable on the black market and have found their way into the hands of "non state" organizations or the so-called "asymmetric" threat.
The slower speed of these platforms forces them to spend more time within the kill zones of MANPADS compared to high performance fighter and strike aircraft.
These jammers have been around since the 1970s and when the correct jamming modulation techniques were applied, were reasonably effective against 1st-generation amplitude-modulated MANPADS, which operated in the near-IR band (1 to 2 micrometres (μm)).
They give no warning of their presence prior to launch, they do not rely on active IR, radar guidance or a laser designator, which would possibly emit a detectable radiation.
They therefore allow very little margin for error to effectively counter them as the time to impact (TTI) on a target at one kilometer, is only about three seconds.
Near 100% probability of warning (POW) and very fast reaction times to counter nearby missile launches (in the order of one second) are essential.
The MAW must also have sufficiently low false alarm rates (FAR), even when illuminated by multiple sources (which may include threats) from different directions.
It is vital to avoid the situation where the platform and the dispensed decoys both remain within the instantaneous field of view (IFoV) of incoming missiles.
Accurate AOA is further important where the platform should preferably maneuver when dispensing decoys to increase the miss distance.
The system must also be fully automated as the human reaction time in relevant cases (short range launches) is too long.
The system may also cause adverse aerodynamic drag which demands minimal physical size and number of boxes.
Separate control panels are justified only for safety of flight purposes such as ECM on/off and decoy jettison functions.
