Radars are, essentially, electronic devices that measure a distance by recording the time it takes a radio pulse to bounce against a given object and return. Nowadays radars are sophisticated sensors used not only in the military field, but also for commercial air traffic control, meteorology and navigation applications and to take images to be used in agriculture, natural resources, scientific projects and emergency management. INVAP started to develop its first complete radars in Argentina in the late 90s, and is now able to design, construct and maintain radars for multiple purposes.
Radars known as "secondary" interrogate an automatic radio (transponder) installed in the aircraft in order to obtain identification information. This is the reason why they are known as radars suitable for "collaborative air traffic control", since they can only detect those aircrafts that want to be identified - by definition, all legal commercial civil flights. On the other hand, primary radars achieve, through their operating technical characteristics, to obtain information from targets detected by themselves, whether aircrafts collaborate or not in their identification, and are therefore ideal to control unidentified illegal flights. By 2003, commercial air traffic control in Argentina was carried out by secondary radars of different origin installed in Ezeiza, Córdoba, Mendoza, Mar del Plata and Paraná. This system was clearly insufficient, and led to flight restrictions and delays, difficulties that kept increasing as air traffic in the country continued to grow. Therefore, the national government decided to entrust INVAP to improve Air Traffic Control Services, in order to respect navigation rules, simultaneously providing a unified control of all air routes and terminals in the country. In 2004, the National System of Air Surveillance and Control was created (Decree Nr. 1407); this system is intended to achieve the effective control of national air space both for all kind of civil activities as for military defense.
The Decree included a second goal: to ensure the greatest possible participation of the national industry in its implementation. With this goal in mind, the National Government requested INVAP the development, construction and installation of radars to meet the requirements of the new system.
The company from the province of Rio Negro replied to this request with the Argentine Program of Radar Sensors Development, designed to centralize all national skills in this matter in order to develop and construct primary, secondary and meteorological "radar sensors" with state-of-the-art technology in the shortest possible time.
At present, said plan is in full development:
- First Argentine primary 3D radar - To be operational in 2011.
- First meteorological radar prototype - Under development.
- Secondary radars (air traffic control) - Eight units installed up to date in Quilmes, Santa Rosa, Neuquén, Bariloche, Córdoba, San Luis, Tucumán and Bahía Blanca airports, to complete a network of 22 secondary radars in 2011.
