AG radar

Now that AG radar is available in the hornet and it seems there is an API from ED available, is there any plans to implement basic RBM capability in the M2k, as IRL?

Now that AG radar is available in the hornet and it seems there is an API from ED available, is there any plans to implement basic RBM capability in the M2k, as IRL?

AFAIK There's no A/G radar in the 2000C. But wait for people with a better knowledge of the plane!

There are minimal modes on RDI:

- VIS: equivalent to Real Beam Mapping

- DEC: looks like Terrain Avoidance on Hornet.

TAS is AG Arafat ranging and it’s already available in game.

The fact that we see the start of AG radar on Hornet doesn’t mean that the API is released to 3rd party.

The AG radar modes on M-2000C won’t change the way you fight, this more for all weather navigation. You can’t designate targets in VIS mode for instance.

 

The fact that we see the start of AG radar on Hornet doesn’t mean that the API is released to 3rd party.

It has been for a long time, Deka used it in the JF-17 which was released what, 6 months ago?

The air to ground radar would be great but indeed, people over estimate its usefulness. Particularly in the Mirage with the current state of the INS and drift.

Maybe adding the VIS mode motivates RAZBAM to fix INS navigation once and for all.

I agree that the usefulness is limited to provide ground references for INS fixes in bad weather, but it'd be cool nevertheless

That would be amazing but let's not get our hopes up :P

There are minimal modes on RDI:

...

 

TAS is AG Arafat ranging and it’s already available in game.

I'm not sure TAS is modelled in a meaningful way :-

You can select TAS mode and use the HUD "diamond" LOS to designate a point on the ground.

However the TAS slant range on the HUD i.e. 14.0 km, etc. doesn't match the geometry if you pause the game and do the math.

I will try to check that on my side...

I provided an example in our discussion with Ramsey around INS update : https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4351072&postcount=12

Took also some screenshots at several distances. Will create a thread about it in the bug section.

Haven't tested it with AG weapon selected though, only with OBL.

Mirage 2000D with Antilope AG RADAR Terrain following Mode (source: BEAD rapport A-2019-01-A):

Yes, but it's a different weapon system with a different radar :smilewink:

It has been for a long time, Deka used it in the JF-17 which was released what, 6 months ago?

 

 

The air to ground radar would be great but indeed, people over estimate its usefulness. Particularly in the Mirage with the current state of the INS and drift.

Since ED is communicating about the fact they had to modify the maps to work with Hornet AG radar, I'm not sure that Deka is using the same API as the Hornet.

We also had the Viggen and A-4 free mod.

It's more probably some custom solutions.

Mirage 2000D with Antilope AG RADAR Terrain following Mode (source: BEAD rapport A-2019-01-A):

Terrain following modes from the french manual of the early 2000c (with RDM radar):

- Decoupe (DEC): presentation des echos fonction de leur hauteur par rapport a une hauteur de plan de garde selectionne (rouge au-dessus, vert au-desous)

- Percee Aveugle (PER): idem a DEC mais le plan de decoupe est parallele auu vecteur vitesse avion

- Anti-collision (AC): mode analogue a PER mais le plan de decoupe a une forme de spatule de ski a D > 5 Nm.

Google Translation:

- Cutout (DEC): presentation of the echoes according to their height compared to a selected guard plane height (red above, green below)

- Blind Drill (PER): same as DEC but the cutting plane is parallel to the airplane speed vector

- Anti-collision (AC): mode analogous to PER but the cutting plane has a shape of ski tip at D> 5 Nm.

BTW, Falcon BMS has similar visualization of the TFR (with the ski symbology):

Since ED is communicating about the fact they had to modify the maps to work with Hornet AG radar, I'm not sure that Deka is using the same API as the Hornet.

We also had the Viggen and A-4 free mod.

 

It's more probably some custom solutions.

Now, since I don't have a JF-17 I can't really tell, but perhaps the changes to the map were mostly to fix a few inconsistencies the radar showed? You never know.

Since ED is communicating about the fact they had to modify the maps to work with Hornet AG radar, I'm not sure that Deka is using the same API as the Hornet.

We also had the Viggen and A-4 free mod.

 

It's more probably some custom solutions.

The Viggen and A4 (and Tomcat actually) are in-house solutions, but I am 100% sure that both Deka and ED have said they are using the same radar API. The Hornet's A2G radar release was also delayed because Deka had some cleaning up to do on their end iirc.

Since ED is communicating about the fact they had to modify the maps to work with Hornet AG radar, I'm not sure that Deka is using the same API as the Hornet.

We also had the Viggen and A-4 free mod.

 

It's more probably some custom solutions.

ED patch notes says Deka updated to latest AG radar api when hornet got ag radar.

but they do not look same, as it is easy to see that JF-17 other than MAP mode uses a external camera above the ground you set to be expanded etc. so you simply get an overview camera with image filters, instead radar point of view readout.

I am starting to fear that ED went closer to simple method for ground radar by making a simpler terrain height map that is used for LOS calculation and drawing a simple terrain texture that gets filtered with radial blurring.

As currently ED radar doesn't detect trees at all, so it is a sign that it is just simple terrain height map.

and the Deka version is in MAP mode the same, with just different filtering settings, plus that fake top view camera for expanded modes.

So others to use the API for ground radar is still questionable as it might be far from final version.

What do you mean with "detect trees"? Trees absorb, not reflect, radar waves.

What do you mean with "detect trees"? Trees absorb, not reflect, radar waves.

Their returns should be different from the ground then (which is what he was referring to as detecting trees I imagine), since the radar beam is scattered differently. Forests do show up on the Viggen's radar for example.

I wonder if the ray-tracing GPU hardware and APIs can be used for radar image simulation (with the radar receiver antenna being the camera and the emitter beam being the light source)...

I wonder if the ray-tracing GPU hardware and APIs can be used for radar image simulation (with the radar receiver antenna being the camera and the emitter beam being the light source)...

You don't need raytracing, just proper shaders and some clever math do the trick pretty well. You can find some interesting papers online

Their returns should be different from the ground then (which is what he was referring to as detecting trees I imagine), since the radar beam is scattered differently. Forests do show up on the Viggen's radar for example.

Can you take some screenshots to illustrate the problem? I see the AG radar perfectly fine

Well, doing order of magnitude stuff: what you see on a radar is how much of the pulse is returning to the antenna. The more the beam is reflected, the more visible it is to a radar.

The ground is a flat surface, so I would expect it to reflect a fair bit of the radar's beam. I can't say how much is reflected vs refracted though; obviously, the radar only pics up the reflected bit.

Forests are not flat, hence they will scatter the same radar beam all over the place rather than in one nice pattern like a flat surface (this is also how e.g. aircraft stealth works - it scatters the radio beam away from the antenna that emitted it). Regardless of how much of the scattered emission comes back to the radar, it will definitely look different from a flat surface.

Finally, the radar should also transmit through water rather than only get reflected/refracted, so that will also have different returns.

What those exact returns look like, I don't know. What it does look like in the Viggen is that forests show up as being slightly darker than flat ground, which appears as darker than water. e.g. the screenshots here https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=225862

So TLDR: I would expect that just the surface "shape" alone, regardless of the material's reflectivity (which plays a big role in detecting other objects), should cause forests to look different from flat ground to an a2g radar. I don't know that it's a problem per se, just a consideration. This also doesn't account for the different materials stuff is made of, which obviously plays a huge role.

I would just like to remind everyone that Mirage 2000C RDI is an interceptor first with radar optimised to work in HFR pulse.

Any AG radar mode (apart from TAS used for ranging) is just used for navigation. This isn’t an AG targeting sensor like for the Viggen.

So don’t expect too much about it, it won’t change the way you fight...

They're not using terrain maps, they gave the ground an RCS overlay, which some things (some placable static objects) are still missing. This is why the radar map doesn't work on the channel map.

The camera views for the jf17 DBS modes are just placeholders according to deka.