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By the late 80s Russia had accumulated a sound research and technology base for development of a new-generation man-portable battlefield surveillance radar for company level. In 1991 the Chief Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Defence Ministry as the general customer announced the specification requirements for the development of the «Fara-1» radar.
«Fara-1» was intended as a replacement for the time proven «SBR-3» radar. The development project focused on performance improvements such as a range increase and rain penetrating capability as well as weight reduction. «Fara-U» weighed 18.5 kg versus 13 kg with its USA counterpart AN/PPS-15A.
Chief Designer on the project was Yu. G. Zemskov (N. A. Zaytsev from 1996), First Deputy Chief Designer was N. A. Zaytsev (N. A. Potapov from 1996), Deputy Chief Designers were: for design efforts — E.v. Speransky and for circuit technology — v. N. Nikolayev.
During the project the designers were faced with the challenging tasks of optimizing the parameters of the radar. This continuous wave radar uses a complex signal with double, phase-coded and frequency modulation to reduce the effects of rain and birds in the near field of the radar. A solid-state microwave unit and high-efficiency slotted waveguide antenna array were designed. The radar was fitted with a signal processor and control computer based on very large scale integrated circuits.
The short-lived silver-zinc batteries were replaced with a new silver-cadmium battery providing several hundred charge/discharge cycles.
The main challenge to system weight reduction was the requirement for mounting the radar on weapons such as the «NSVS-12.7» large caliber machine gun. The shock during the weapon firing (as high as 100 g for the «NSVS-12.7» machine gun) required a strong and light-weight radar head installed on the gun. As a result most of the radar equipment was contained in the control console, which increased its dimensions and weight and caused problems with the system configuration and ease of carrying. Total weight of the system in a carrying pack (including the tripod, drive and remote operation cable) was 16.5 kg.
The weight requirement stipulated in performance specifications was implemented in the patrol version of this radar (10.5 kg).
In 1996–1997 all the problems were solved and the «Fara-1» was delivered for state tests carried out from September 1997 till February 1998.
The tests demonstrated that «Fara-1» offers a wider range of application options than its foreign counterparts and outperforms the locally-made 1RL136 radar in terms of maximum detection range by a factor of two (by a factor of as much as three to four for rainfall at a rate of 2–5 mm/hour), mean time of target location by a factor of one and a half, and mean time between failures by a factor of five. The weight of the «Fara-1» man-portable equipment set is 1.8 kg lighter; the radar features remote control and automatic adaptive moving target detector.
In 1999 the «Fara-1» man-portable battlefield surveillance radar was adopted for service with the Russian Army under the designation «SBR-5» (Russian abbreviation for «Short-Range Radar»).
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