How a ship can guide 32 missiles simultaneously without moving its eyes

Technology · Published 18 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Traditional radars often rely on rotating dishes to scan the horizon. Active Phased Array Radar (APAR) flips this script. By using fixed sensor faces and electronic steering, it can track hundreds of targets and guide dozens of missiles at once, all while remaining perfectly still.

Developed by Thales Nederland, APAR is a shipborne multifunction 3D radar that replaces mechanical rotation with electronic scanning. It features four fixed sensor arrays mounted on a pyramidal structure. Each of these faces contains 3,424 transmit/receive modules operating at X band frequencies. This architecture allows the system to perform multiple roles simultaneously, such as tracking over 200 air targets out to 150 km and over 150 surface targets out to 32 km.

APAR's primary advancement involves employing the Interrupted Continuous Wave Illumination (ICWI) method to direct missiles. This technology allows the radar to guide 32 semi-active radar homing missiles in flight at the same time, including 16 during the critical terminal guidance phase. This capability was first verified in a live operational environment in November 2003 off the Azores, where the Royal Netherlands Navy successfully guided both an Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) and an SM-2 Block IIIA.

In modern naval doctrine, APAR is rarely used in isolation. It is typically paired with the SMART-L, a passive electronically scanned array radar operating at L band. This combination follows the NATO Anti-Air Warfare concept: the SMART-L acts as a long-range volume search radar (reaching 480 km), while the APAR provides high-accuracy, medium-range tracking and missile guidance. This dual-layered approach ensures the ship can detect threats from a distance and engage them with precision.

The system is also highly adaptable. While designed for high-end anti-air warfare, the Royal Netherlands Navy has successfully used tailored software to repurpose APAR for counter-piracy operations. By sacrificing some high-end capabilities, the software improves the radar's resolution for detecting small, slow-moving, or static surface targets, demonstrating the versatility of phased array technology.

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