To strengthen the country's battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, the Indian Army has inducted a lighter and more compact version of the indigenously developed Weapon Locating Radar (WLR-M), called 'Swati Mountain'. Deputy Chief of Army Staff (CD&S) Lt Gen JB Choudhary flagged off the radar system, which will strengthen the battlefield surveillance capabilities of the Army.
About Swati Mountain Radar:
Swati Mountain Radar WLR is an advanced electronically scanned phased array radar, specially designed for operation in mountainous and high altitude areas and was developed by Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) in Bengaluru.
Swati Radar comes in two versions:
- Swati Plains (WLR) and Swati Parvat (WLR-M). The Swati Terrain variant is primarily designed to detect enemy guns, mortars and rockets, and as the name of the variant suggests, it is capable of measuring the fall of shot from friendly weapons for corrective measures on flat terrain such as plains. Can also track.
- The Swati Mountain variant, on the other hand, is a more compact and mobile variant specially designed for operations in mountainous and high altitude terrains.
The Defense Ministry had signed a contract worth over Rs 9,100 crore on 30 March 2023 to procure the advanced Akash weapon system and 12 Swati Mountain radars for the Indian Army. Last year, the Indian Army placed an order for six additional Swati WLR-Ms. With the addition of the recently placed order for the Swati Plains radar, the Indian Army will soon be operating a total of 48 such systems.