Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 8 (IANS) An integrated command and control system commissioned here Wednesday has enabled the real time networking of all military and civil radars in south India to qualitatively enhance the surveillance capabilities of the Indian Air Force (IAF) in a broad swathe from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and large parts of Sri Lanka.”This system will help in carrying out real time networking of civil and military radars and will act as a force multiplier for the IAF in the southern peninsula,” Air Marshal S. Radhakrishnan, the air officer commanding-in-chief of the Southern Air Command, said at the commissioning ceremony here on the IAF’s 76th anniversary.

The system integrates IAF, Indian Navy and civilian radars in the southern peninsula through a multi-radar data fusion software that presents a bird’s eye view of all aerial operations at the Southern Air Command headquarters.

The system also provides facilities to support air defence functions like automatic surveillance, identification, threat evaluation, interception and recovery.

“This would also increase the operational preparedness of the Southern Air Command and aid in the optimum utilisation of our air defence resources,” an officer explained.