The Russian Airborne Early Warning and Control (AWACS) system may get a new direction. Instead of building only AWACS aircraft, analysts from "Voennaya Khronika" proposed creating an unmanned complex with an airborne radar station.
According to experts, the main task is to develop a compact radar comparable in capabilities to the Swedish Erieye, but light enough to be installed on a drone.
Among the possible options, lightweight versions of Russian Arbalet-AM and Kopyo stations were previously considered, but even they are still too heavy for such aircraft.
The creation of such a complex is a matter of security for both individual regions and the state border as a whole.
In their opinion, an unmanned AWACS will be able to continuously monitor airspace, detect low-flying targets, and reduce the load on A-50 aircraft and Ka-31 helicopters.
In addition, the loss of such an aircraft in case of combat use will be significantly less costly than the loss of a manned airborne early warning aircraft.