IAI Unveils POINT@AIR Tactical Aerostat Radar With 150 km AESA Range at AUSA 2026

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is unveiling POINT@AIR, a mobile tethered aerostat radar designed to detect and track low-flying aircraft, drones, and cruise missiles, at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., opening October 12, 2026. Built by IAI’s ELTA Systems subsidiary on the ELM-2083 radar family, the system lifts an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar to between 1,000 and 5,000 feet to see over terrain that blinds ground-based sensors.

Ground-based air defense faces a geometry problem. Under standard radar-horizon calculations, a sensor on a 10-meter mast loses sight of a target flying at 30 meters at roughly 36 kilometers, leaving little time to cue an interceptor. Elevated sensors solve that problem but carry a mixed record in Washington: the Army’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS), a $2.7 billion effort according to the Government Accountability Office, stalled short of production after a 2012 Nunn-McCurdy breach and the October 28, 2015, breakaway of one of its aerostats from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

POINT@AIR Tactical Aerostat Radar: Range, Altitude, and Coverage

IAI’s product literature gives POINT@AIR a hovering altitude of 1,000 to 5,000 feet, an instrumented range of 150 kilometers, 360-degree azimuth coverage, elevation coverage of plus or minus 40 degrees, and height coverage up to 10,000 feet. The radar tracks hundreds of targets simultaneously and operates in rotating or sector-scan modes.

The architecture pairs electronic scanning in both azimuth and elevation with mechanical rotation of the array. The design is fully digital, with digital beamforming across multiple transmitters and receivers, and runs as a software-defined radar with adjustable waveforms and beam shapes. The company also cites electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) and signal processing tuned for high-clutter environments, a requirement for a downward-looking sensor tracking small targets against terrain and sea surface.

From 5,000 feet, the radar horizon against a target skimming at 30 meters extends to roughly 180 kilometers, beyond the 150-kilometer instrumented range; at maximum hover, geometry stops being the binding constraint against low flyers. The 10,000-foot height ceiling confirms the design point: POINT@AIR covers the low- and medium-altitude band where one-way attack drones, loitering munitions, and cruise missiles operate, not the ballistic or high-altitude regime.

IAI also lists maritime surveillance and fire-control support for weapon systems among its missions, with tracking of aerial, maritime, and ground targets. Intended sites include military bases, critical infrastructure, land borders, coastlines, and offshore facilities. IAI has not disclosed the radar’s frequency band, aerostat dimensions, payload weight, crew size, or detection ranges against specific radar cross-section (RCS) classes.

Smaller Aerostat, Faster Relocation: How POINT@AIR Compares to ELM-2083A

POINT@AIR scales down the strategic ELM-2083A, which IAI markets as a C-band AESA built on gallium nitride (GaN) modules. That system flies between 8,000 and 15,000 feet and offers a 200-nautical-mile instrumented range. IAI’s catalog lists POINT@AIR under the same ELM-2083A designation. Earlier ELM-2083 variants have been exported to India and Singapore, and ELTA served as prime contractor on Israel’s Sky Dew elevated sensor, inflated in northern Israel in November 2021 under a cooperative program with the US Missile Defense Agency.

The tactical version trades roughly 60 percent of the instrumented range for mobility. A medium-sized aerostat carries the radar with the same claimed 30-day continuous endurance, and IAI says operators can recover the system and prepare it for redeployment at a new site in under one hour. That speed answers the core survivability objection to aerostats: a fixed tethered balloon is a visible, emitting, and predictable target for long-range fires and loitering munitions.

Where the strategic ELM-2083A centers on early warning, IAI positions POINT@AIR as a fire-control radar that cues other sensors and ground-based air defense (GBAD) weapons onto low-RCS air-breathing threats through command-and-control networks. Dror Bar, chief executive of ELTA Systems, framed it as a redesign: “Our goal was not simply to reduce the size of an existing solution.”

Analysis: Choosing AUSA over an air force venue signals where IAI sees demand: ground forces that need fire-control-quality tracks on small, low-flying targets. JLENS attempted an elevated sensor at strategic scale from fixed sites and stalled on cost and reliability; POINT@AIR applies the same physics at tactical scale, betting on mobility rather than altitude. A tethered aerostat at 5,000 feet stays detectable, weather constrains operations, and IAI has not stated how long relaunch takes once the system reaches a new site.

IAI has not announced a launch customer, US industrial partner, unit price, or production timeline, or whether POINT@AIR has completed operational trials. Transport footprint and interface protocols also remain undisclosed, including compatibility with the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS). A first order would show whether the concept gains traction with US and allied ground forces.