Crewless Flight Radar
Radar sensing to enable safe flight of crewless aircraft, and autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicles.
Crewless flight requires more than radar. As your development partner, Plextek provides end-to-end support from initial concept through to qualified systems, helping you navigate the technical complexities of sensor integration for autonomous platforms.
We have significant heritage in developing radar systems for aviation applications, specialising in low size, weight, and power designs that integrate onto platforms with strict payload constraints.
We can design and develop tailored solutions, taking them through qualification into manufacture and supply.
Our proven track record
- Over 35 years of advanced development experience
- Over 200 customers in 25 countries
- Experienced in Government Programs
- Proven radar heritage in aviation applications
- Extensive R&D testing radars on UAVs
Why Crewless Flight Radar matters
The aviation sector is undergoing a transformation with the adoption of crewless flight platforms for routine applications such as cargo flights, border patrol, and infrastructure monitoring. Removing the need for a human pilot reduces operating costs and eliminates crew-related safety requirements, potentially lowering the cost of air transport for goods and services, and facilitating inspections in areas unsafe for human pilots. However, replacing the pilot requires not only autopilot systems but also advanced sensors to detect hazards during flight. Radar is the optimal sensor for this mission due to its ability to detect and locate threats over large areas, quickly, in all weather conditions, day or night.
Innovation Roadmap for Next-Generation Capabilities
We are developing advanced radar technologies to support the evolving needs of autonomous aviation. Our roadmap includes AI and machine learning for intelligent target classification, swarm intelligence for distributed sensing networks, and next-generation sensor fusion architectures. We are advancing low size, weight, and power (SWaP) radar capabilities for uncrewed platforms, space-based sensing applications, and GPS-denied navigation solutions. These development efforts position Plextek to support customers as autonomous aviation evolves over the coming decade.
Real-world challenges
The key challenge is detecting hazards reliably, accurately and at sufficient range to enable evasive action, whilst being small, lightweight and cost-effective for platform integration. Plextek identifies optimal technical solutions within these competing requirements and delivers qualified systems to tight specifications.
What sets us apart
- Custom radar design
– Able to design radar systems to meet challenging specifications within complex trade-spaces, balancing detection range, accuracy, size, weight, power, and cost.
- Intelligent signal processing
– Able to reliably extract detections from radar data quickly and efficiently, distinguishing genuine threats from clutter in complex environments.
- Low SWaP optimisation
– Specialised in developing compact, lightweight, low-power radar systems for platforms with strict payload constraints.
- Rapid prototyping to production
– Complete solution from concept through qualification into manufacture and support, reducing customer integration risk.
- Collaborative development
– Working closely with the client to understand operational needs and deliver precisely tailored solutions rather than off-the-shelf.
- Aviation heritage & standards compliance
– Proven track record of delivery in military and civil aviation.
Why choose Plextek?
Complete Ecosystem Integration
Plextek’s radar systems are designed with integration flexibility in mind. Our open architecture approach enables potential integration with ground control stations, mission planning software, and training simulators. We design for diagnostics capabilities to support maintenance workflows, and our systems can be configured for data fusion with complementary sensors such as ADS-B and EO/IR for enhanced situational awareness. For coordinated operations, our radar architectures can support distributed sensing approaches where multiple platforms share threat data cooperatively.
“The challenge goes far beyond detecting hazards; it’s about achieving this within engineering and cost constraints whilst meeting rigorous regulatory and certification standards. Successfully balancing those often-competing demands is precisely where Plextek’s expertise makes the difference.”
Professor Aled Catherall, CTO
Got an engineering challenge? Get in touch to talk in confidence with our experts
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