The Most Powerful Fighter Radar in the Western World: New APG-82(V)X Announced For F-15EX Fighters

American defence contractor Raytheon has developed a new primary radar for enhanced variants of the F-15 fighter, the APG-82(V)X. According to the firm, this significantly improves on the capabilities of prior radars with the use of “cutting-edge gallium nitride (GaN) technology to enhance the radar’s effectiveness, delivering increased range, advanced air-to-air, air-to-ground, and electronic warfare capabilities.” The F-15 is the only type of heavyweight fighter in production in the Western world, and carries a significantly larger radar than any other Western fighter type, with the APG-82 being approximately 50 percent larger than the AN/APG-81 and AN/APG-85 used by the F-35. Where the F-35 is set to transition from using the AN/APG-85, the transition to the APG-82(V)X is expected to bring the F-15’s sensor suite to a similarly advanced technological standard, albeit with very considerably more power due to its larger size.

The new radar is reported by Raytheon to be able to track and engage targets more rapidly “with multi-function fire control and EW [Electronic Warfare] capabilities,” and “will help warfighters make faster decisions and provide superior situational awareness in contested environments.”Gallium nitride technology like that on the AN/APG-85 supports higher voltages, but generates less heat, allowing a more dense array of transmit-receive modules with less for a significantly more efficient design. It is expected that the APG-82(V)X will not only be integrated onto newly produced F-15EX fighters currently being procured by the U.S. Air Force, but that it will also be considered to modernise older Cold War era F-15E fighters’ sensor suites as these aircraft see their service lives extended.

Although large by the standards of Western fighters, the F-15’s radar carrying capacity is dwarfed by those of the Su-27 air superiority fighter and its derivatives currently in production in China and Russia, and moreso by Russia’s MiG-31BM interceptors which carry radars over twice as large. The Chinese J-16 and J-15T are currently assessed to carry the most powerful radars of any fighters in the world, with the combination of a much larger radar size, and the particularly high sophistication of the Chinese electronics and radar industries, allowing cutting edge sensors to be integrated. The F-15EX and J-16 have comparable roles, with their particularly long ranges, powerful sensors and high weapons carrying capacities allowing them to effectively complement fleets of stealth fighters like the J-20 and F-35. While the J-16 has long integrated the world’s longest ranged air-to-air missile the PL-XX, it is expected that the F-15EX will soon integrate a similarly long range LRAAM missile that will be able to make fuller use of its improving sensor capabilities.