Myech

N001 Myech (Меч, literally Sword) is a Russian (former USSR) all-weather multimode airborne radar developed by the Tikhomirov Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Design (NIIP) for the Su-27 multi-role combat aircraft.

Description
The N001 radar for the Su-27 was designed by Viktor Grishin. Pushing the state of the art for the USSR, the original design, known as Myech, was supposed to draw heavily on technologies developed for the experimental Soyuz radar program led by NPO Istok. It was intended to have a great deal of commonality with the MiG-29's N019 Rubin radar. N001 has a 1.075m antenna diameter twist-cassegrain antenna. A pulse-doppler design operating in the 3cm band utilising medium and high PRFs for optimum lookdown capability, the N001 has a search range of 80-100km against a 3 sq m RCS target in a headon engagement, 140km against a large bomber. It can track a 3 sq m target at 65km. In a pursuit engagement, search range for a 3 sq m target falls to just 40km. Azimuth limits are ±60°.MTBF is 100 hours. The Su-27K used an updated SUV-33 control system, the N001 radar was largely unchanged but with sea optimised lookdown capability and support for the carrier-based GCI system.

Modernisation
Stage 1: Provision of ground mapping modes. Existing radar is modified with a bypass channel that allows incoming radar data to be switched to a new all-digital processing system. When a new mode is selected, radar data is sent to the new subsystems, but if an old mode is selected the data is processed as before by the existing radar hardware. Thus all old modes remain unchanged. New air to ground modes added are very similar to those of the Zhuk radar. Only 1 additional air-to-air mode, which can track and engage 2 targets at once using the R-77 missile.

Stage 2: NIIP propose a new lightweight, optically-fed Pero phased array antenna as a drop-in replacement for the existing cassegrain antenna. This will substantially improve air-to-air performance, and increase air-to-ground resolution. New modes will be added at the same time for target identification, velocity search, and to detect hovering helicopters. Suggested that range might reach 300km against a large target. Upgrade to Stage 2 is expected to cost 35% of the cost of a new radar.

Variants

 * N001VE
 * fitted to Chinese Su-30MKK. Uses Baguet series BCVM-486-6 processorfor additional capabilities. the same as  Stage 1 package.


 * N001VEP
 * The final stage of N001 modernisation has been called "Panda".Sukhoi Su-30MK3 incorporated the Panda upgrade package for the N001 radar, including a signal processor upgrade based on COTS software and a Ts-100 processor, and the new Pero passive phased array antenna (instead of the Myech cassegrain design), developed by NIIP and Ryazan GRPZ.