London: Scientists have unveiled world`s first photonics-based coherent radar system that could send live cockpit video and pinpoint a plane`s precise location.
The radar system uses lasers to produce high fidelity signals that pinpoint planes precisely, the BBC reported.
The new PhoDiR (Photonics-based fully digital radar) system is a working prototype for next-generation radars and is designed to let pilots and air traffic control exchange far more information in a single signal.
The system promises higher precision, which means less noise (interference) in the radar transmission, higher bandwidth that will be able to transmit cockpit data, greater flexibility offers more frequencies and smaller antennas that are cheaper, lighter and more portable.
Paolo Ghelfi of National Laboratory of Photonic Networks said that the system is even more precise than they expected and can detect airplanes much farther away with even higher precision.
Ghelfi added that one could imagine transmitting live streaming video, together with the radar surveillance data and the advantage would be that a single system can do the entire job, instead of multiple systems.
