If the current graphics translate accurately into the production design of the aircraft, a high level of stealth can be expected from it against radars operating in the L band. X to C band stealth, however, will be heavily dependent of the quality of construction, the shaping of the facets and joints, and of the equipment and weapons bay doors.
Sensors
The Senor suites in AMCA led by the LRDE and BEL which include many private and foreign contributes.
The primary sensor will be gallium Nitride (GaN) based radar. Infrared based systems like IRST, missile warning systems, laser warning system also added internally in the AMCA. The IRST sensors are placed in all sides of the AMCA to provide full angle coverage like in Rafale and F 35. The proposed IRST system is work similar to the F 35’s EOTS who shares the information’s to friendly units like via the satellite and highly secured data links. But the fact remains that only United States and China have developed conformal IR/Synthetic vision Sensors & Tracking system and there will be significant developmental hurdles here.
AMCA also comes with self protection jammer system to jam enemy radar guided missiles from both air and ground. Electronic counter measure systems to confuse the infrared guided missiles (DIRCM) and a radar warning receiver too added to detect enemy radar frequencies.
The Multifunction RF Sensor, which has broad spectrum agility, includes capabilities for electronic countermeasures (ECM), electronic support measures (ESM), communications functions, and possibly even microwave weapon functions. AMCA will be integrated from the cockpit to accompanying UAVs and UCAVs which will include DRDO AURA, DRDO Rustom through encrypted datalink connections
Sensor Fusion
In AMCA all the data collected from the various sensors processes and present to the pilot as a single integrated picture of the battle field and possibly share to other fighters and ground stations automatically (Net centric). This kind of sensor fusion will provide the pilot a stunning situational awareness.
AMCA will have vehicle management (including weapons), data fusion, decision aids, integrated modular avionics, internal carriage of weapons, signature control. The AMCA is likely to have fly - by - light system. It makes AMCA more immune to electronic attacks (EMI – electromagnetic interference, HIRF –High energy radiated fields) and much better transmission speed and processing capabilities. Fly – by – light is also helps to reduce the weight of the aircraft. The higher band width of fly – by – light is very useful in controlling the aircraft at high speeds. Higher bandwidth ensures higher data transfer rate, therefore pilots command passes rapidly from aircraft cockpit to control surfaces which ensures smooth aircraft maneuvering even in high speeds especially AMCA is designed as an aircraft with super cruise capability the advantage of Fly – by – light is enormous and also improves the safety margin of AMCA.
Another major advantage of Fly – By – Light is , AMCA will use composites to make its body , use of composite materials in aircraft structures will decrease the effect of electronic attack of enemies cos composites are less suspected to EMI than metal structures .Consequently, FBW are subjected to greater electrical interference which can degrade performance .But optical pulses transmitted by FBL system are unaffected by the much lower frequency electromagnetic waves that characterize the Electronic attack threat.
AMCA will have another feature called self repair / self protection. Self repair will achieve with the help of self-diagnosing and self-healing systems that distribute the work load to other systems from affected to non-affected systems. Self protection would be provided with the use of nanotechnology to produce advanced composite materials designed to have a higher resistance to damage and therefore reducing the damage surface area. The aircraft uses Self Repairing Flight Control Capability to automatically detect failures or damage in its flight control surfaces, and using the remaining control surfaces, calibrate accordingly to retain controlled flight. The use of adaptive neural networks would be a key feature in self healing and self repairing they can record all the faults occurred and also can learn from the previous faults.
But it is not an easy task to develop this kind of highly advanced capabilities. Sensor fusion is a necessity in 5th generation fighter aircrafts, only time will say how good will be AMCA, s sensor fusion.
Radar
The AMCA will incorporate an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) which, the official illustrations indicate, is also mechanically steerable. This is an advantage as the beam manoeuvrability of an AESA can be stretched to a broader detection area.
The AMCA hosts new generation GaN based AESA for superior detection and performance. Some information’s reported that, state owned LRDE is initiated a project to develop a small size air borne X band GaN based AESA radar for AMCA. LRDE already shows a model of AESA radar in last year’s Aero India exhibition. The use of GaN will give significant benefits of power density, efficiency, and bandwidth to AMCA. Furthermore the use of GaN will solve substantial system-related issues, such as the need for higher operating voltages, more efficient heat removal techniques, and high reliability
The under development Uttam AESA radar intended for Tejas LCA is not good for fifth generation fighters like AMCA. It’s reported earlier that, India and Israel working for a joint project to develop a GaN based AESA for fighter jets. However due to the importance of the program the information’s are highly classified.
Cockpit
One of the most dramatic aspects AMCA will be its cockpit and man-machine interface. AMCA cockpit could have a panoramic active-matrix display of the kind available on American fifth generation aircraft with dimensions of 60 by 24 centimeters designed by DARE and manufactured by Samtel or 44 by 18 centimetres by HALBIT which is a joint-venture between HAL and Elbit Systems . Conventional systems would be replaced with touch screen interfaces and voice commands (cockpit speech-recognition system). AMCA pilot will have a helmet-mounted display system that allows the jettisoning of a HUD from the AMCA cockpit altogether.
The primary flight controls are arranged in a hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS)-compatible configuration, with a right-handed side-stick controller and a left-handed throttle. HOTAS will give more control over air craft, because they give independent analog control over all three rotational axes (Pitch, Roll, and Yaw) as well as thrust. AMCA's cockpit has a secondary "get-you-home" panel providing the pilot with essential flight information in case of an emergency.
The pilot interacts with on-board systems through a multi-functional keyboard and several selection panels. The Head up Display and helmet-mounted display and sight (HMDS), and hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) controls reduce pilot workload and increase situation awareness by allowing the pilot to access navigation and weapon-aiming information with minimal need to spend time "head down" in the cockpit.
Propulsion
AMCA is a twin-engines aircraft which is powered by 2X GTRE k9 + or K 10 engine that can capable of producing 11-Kn-125Kn thrust each. The aircraft has a maximum takeoff weight is 29 tonnes: 2 tonnes of internal weapons and 4 tonnes of internal fuel. It can achieve maximum speed of 2.5+ Mach (2665 + Km/h) at altitude and Mach 1.2 at sea level and have a cruise speed of Mach 1.6 at super-cruise. The AMCA would have range of 2800 km and climb at the altitudes @ 13,716m/min.
Avionics
The envisaged avionics of AMCA would be the best in this world if everything goes as planned. The system architecture of AMCA is much more advanced than what we seen in LCA Tejas. AMCA looking towards a quadruplex fly-by-light electrooptic architecture with fiber optic links for signal and data communications. And unlike centralized architecture on the Tejas, the AMCA proposes to sport a distributed architecture with smart sub-systems. Similarly, unlike the LCA's centralized digital Flight control computer (DFCC), the AMCA could have a distributed system with smart remote units for data communication with sensors and actuators, a system that will necessitate much faster on-board processors.
The mechanical gyros and accelerometers are avoided in AMCA rather it will use fiber optic gyros, ring laser gyros and MEMS gyros (MicroElectroMechanical Systems). The pressure probes and vanes that make up the air-data sensors will evolve into an optical and flush air data system, and position sensors will be linear/rotary optical encoders. Significantly, actuators -- currently electro-hydraulic/direct drive using in the conventional aircrafts could be changed to electrohydrostatic, to accrue substantive weight savings on the AMCA.
The AMCA could feature highly evolved integrated control laws for flight, propulsion, braking, nose wheel steer and fuel management and adaptive neural networks for fault detection, identification and control law reconfiguration. Flights controls of the aircraft are both highely Integrated and independent of each other's which includes flight controls, engine controls, brake and landing controls, and other systems this is possible due the active controls gears systems (ACGS).
The AMCA's avionics systems architecture will feature a central computational system connected internally and externally on an optic fiber channel by means of multiport connectivity switching modules. In such a system, functionality will be mapped on resourced optimally and reallocated when faults occur (Self healing).Data communications on the AMCA's processing modules will be through a high-speed fiber channel bus, IEEE-1394B-STD. The connectivities will be switched by means of a multiport switching matrix, with data speeds of 400MB/second.
The AMCA could have integrated radio naviation systems, where all functions earlier done by analogue circuits will be shifted onto digital processors. Communication system will be based on software radio ranging from UHF to K band, with data links for digital data/voice data and video.
Algorithms of AMCA will be one of the best, the AMCA pilot will get a decision aid in the form of ability to plan attack strategies, avoid strategies, retreat strategies and evasive strategies for himself and his buddies. Fault recording and coverage in the maintenance and diagnostics algorithms on the AMCA will be one of the most advanced ones. This kind of fault recording will be used to iterate more advanced algorithms and decision aid.
The AMCA's EW suite is developed by the Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE) with support from the Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DLRL). This EW suite includes a radar warning receiver (RWR), Missile Approach Warning (MAW) and a laser warning receiver (LWR) system, Infrared & Ultraviolet Missile warning sensors, self-protection jammer, chaff, jaff and flare dispenser, an electronic countermeasures (ECM) suite and a towed radar decoy (TRD).
Weapons
With advanced sensors the aircraft will be loaded with missiles like DRDO Astra along with some other superior missiles, standoff weaponry as well as precision weapons. The aircraft will feature the ability to deploy Precision Guided Munitions. It will also feature extensive detection range as well as targeting range with the capacity to release arsenals at supersonic speed.
The AMCA features two internal weapons bays which can carry four air-air missiles each. A total of eight missiles are carried in the internal bays, and there are external hardpoints for mounting up to six underwing pylons including two near wingtip pylons and two for drop tanks along with two hardpoints underneath the aircraft's belly, with two on the each side of the weapons bay. AMCA's high cruising speed substantially increases weapon effectiveness compared to its predecessors due to its ability to launch weapons at supersonic speed
References
1. Abhijit Iyer-Mitra and Pushan Das. "The Advanced Medium Combat
Aircraft:A Technical Analysis".
2. Aviation week
3. ADA
4. Wikipedia
5. Many other news and articles
http://fullafterburner.weebly.com/next-gen-weapons/amca-the-conqueror-in-making
