History of airborne surveillance radars

As a summary for this introduction to UWB surveillance radars, there has been significant advances in the past 40 years to enable this important capability for both military and geophysical applications. However, the short-range and low altitude of piloted airborne systems made practical battlefield radar systems unattractive. RPVs (or UAVs in today's vocabulary) were starting to be developed. More importantly, the availability of data links would enable significant processing and image interpretation on the ground. Data links provided line-of-sight connection to command and control centers at a safer distance to the airborne platform.