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usefulness of RAdio Detection and Ranging
(Radar) technology to provide beyond visual
range monitoring and tracking capability has
made it an essential part for the world’s mili-
taries as well as for every nations’ civil aviation [ REPORT ]
and maritime authorities.

Indonesia is no exception to this. Ever since
the country bought its first radar system from
the Soviet Union and other Warsaw pact coun-
tries in the early 1960’s, the Indonesian Armed
Forces (TNI) have also started to educate and
train their own personnel to not only operate
such systems, but to also be able to maintain
and repair them. This proved to be beneficial
since TNI’s engineers and technicians were
still able to keep at least some of their radars
operational, especially after the Soviet Union
withdrew their technicians and other supports
following the crackdown of the Indonesian
communist party by the TNI in 1966.

It was unfortunate that in the next three decades
afterwards the country still hadn’t committed
itself to start developing its own radar indus-
try due to its over-reliance to Western-made
radars which replaced obsolete Soviet-made
ones from 1980’s onward. This was something
that would bite them back later in 1992 after
the United States and other Western nations
put an arms embargo to Indonesia in response
to TNI’s violent oppression of the East Timor’s
independence movement.

Indigenous Developments
Having learned from their own past mistakes,
Growing its arms embargo to Indonesia in November
even before the United States officially lifted
2005, the Indonesian government and TNI have
already begun to start an initiative to develop
and expand domestic defense industries -which
also includes radar- in order to reduce depen-
Capability dency from foreign sources in January of the
same year. Although it wasn’t until 2012 when
this initiative was finally formulated into a law,
it’s worth noting that the Indonesian Institute
of Sciences (LIPI) and RCS-247, the radar R&D
division of the PT Dua Empat Tujuh company,
have already started a radar R&D project in
2006.
INDONESIA IS GROWING ITS MILITARY RADAR
DEVELOPMENT CAPABILITY Known as the INDRA (Indonesian Radar) proj-
ect, the first prototype of this radar was tested
Yulian Ardiansyah at Cilegon in October 2008. While there were
two versions of INDRA: shipborne INDRA-1, and
land-based INDRA-2, LIPI eventually concen-
It has already been globally understood that ever since its trated its resources to develop INDRA-2 further
emergence a few years before the start of the World War II, the to become what is known as ISRa (Indonesian

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