Projection: J-20 sensors and mission avionics
Background:
Fifth generation fighter aircraft feature many enhanced capabilities compared to older fourth generation fighters, including highly capable and integrated sensor suites and mission avionics.
As a fifth generation fighter, the J-20 will likely be equipped with certain key sensors and mission avionics to be competitive with other fighter aircraft of its generation. Verified details of J-20’s sensor suite and mission avionics do not exist due to the high operational security of the Chinese military, however it is possible to reach certain likely conclusions, through the combination of credible open source rumours, analysis of J-20 pictures, and the application of common sense and critical thinking.
However, first it is important to determine the sensors and avionics typical of a fifth generation fighter. These may usually an advanced active electronically scanned array radar, an advanced electronic support measures suite, an advanced datalink or datalinks, as well as possible electro-optic/infra-red sensors and even secondary radars. Of course, the integration of the sensors via data fusion and the actual capability of the sensors compared to each other are not known and may never be known, therefore the table below should not be viewed as an exhaustive qualitative comparison.
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