MOSCOW, January 22. /TASS/. Russia’s RTI Joint Stock Company will complete the upgrade project for Russia’s missile attack warning system radar stations by the end of this year, RTI CEO Pavel Laptayev told TASS. In particular, the company plans to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) elements to the radar system’s electronics.

"We are currently working on a project that lays out the existing radar stations’ upgrade logic. This project will be finished in 2020, and then we will get down to the research and development stage to compile the evidential base, and formulate technical solutions for each station upgrade separately," Laptayev said.

An individual upgrade plan will be put together for each radar station. The few remaining analog stations, built on 15-20 year-old principles, will be fully switched over to digital technologies. In particular, the company plans to "implement data center-level computing powers, Big Data analysis and artificial intelligence (machine learning)," the CEO pointed out.

Laptayev explained that machine learning significantly speeds up the identification of characteristics and type of objects discovered along with their flight direction. "We already tested these systems at a number of our stations, including those on active duty. Implementation of artificial intelligence would result in identifying a larger number of tracked objects, faster and more precise identification of [their] coordinates and flight directions," he said.

Besides, all radar stations will be plugged into one information system, "which will relay all data required for decision making," Laptayev noted.

Missile warning system

The Russian missile attack warning system is designed to alert the government and military brass about an incoming missile attack on Russian territory, provide data for Moscow’s missile defense system, as well as to furnish data about space objects for space control. The system includes two echelons: a ground-based one and a space-based one. The ground-based echelon consists mostly of ‘Voronezh’ radar stations that can detect ballistic missiles at a range of 6,000 km.