NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance Programme
Originally There Were Four Candidates for the Core
- US Joint STARS
- UK ASTOR
- IT CRESO
- FR HORIZON
Programme now headed along a development path, rather than off-the-shelf purchase
NATO Staff Requirement Calls For
- Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
- Moving Target Indicator (MTI)
- Potentially Other Complementary Sensors
Notes:
There are four major candidate systems being looked at for the NATO AGS capability. They are the US Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS), the UK Airborne Stand-Off Radar (ASTOR), the Italian Complesso Eliportato per La Sorveglianza (CRESO) and the French Helicoptere d’Observation Radar et d’Investigation sur Zone (HORIZON).
Each of these consists of an airborne sensor platform and a ground station. These are connected through medium to high bandwidth data links in order to transmit the data to the ground and service requests to the airborne platforms.
NATO’s requirement for sensors includes both a Synthetic Aperture Radar capability for imaging fixed targets and a Moving Target Indicator capability for detecting moving targets.
Other complementary platforms and sensor systems are also being considered, including ESM, Electro-Optic, etc.