Close surveillance radars to be deployed at presidential office

The Defense Ministry has decided to urgently introduce five units of the latest close surveillance radar model from Israel and deploy them at the presidential office to cope with the threat of North Korea’s small unmanned aerial vehicles.

According to a military source on Tuesday, the military authorities hurriedly dispatched to Israel its task-force team to handle the threat of the North’s drones, and are inspecting the performance of low-altitude radars. The source said that Lee Yong-geol, head of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, also attended a South Korea-Israel defense industry cooperation meeting in Israel, and is inspecting matters regarding the low-altitude radars there.

The tactical air surveillance radar, which the military is seeking to introduce, is reportedly the RPS-42 radar developed by Israel`s RADA Electronic Industries. The radar is installed on an antenna and projects powerful radio wave into the air, and can detect fighter jets, helicopters and even small UAVs measuring 1 to 2 meters that approach at ultralow altitude of 100 meters or lower. The radar costs about 1 billion won (950,000 U.S. dollars) per unit. A source in the military said, “After pilot tests, we will deploy four or five units at the presidential office in the first half of this year.” The military also plans to deploy more of the radars in areas around Five Yellow Sea Islands including Baengnyeong Island and northern Gyeonggi Province, and front-line areas in the east coast, where drones were recently found crashed in succession.

The military also plans to introduce four mid-altitude unmanned reconnaissance planes from overseas with a 40 billion won (38.2 million dollars) budget in order to monitor coastal artillery guns and multiple rocket howitzers, and deploy them on site early next year. The Israeli Heron and Hermes are known as the candidate aircraft models.