Military authorities want to procure a radar capable of detecting stealth aircraft by the mid-2020s as China and Japan boost their military arsenal.

An Air Force officer on Wednesday said, "The Air Force first called for stealth-detection radar in July 2011, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided in November last year to build such a detection system in the long term."

"The Agency for Defense Development and other institutes are developing a stealth-detection radar. Once we know how good the domestic technology is, we'll decide whether to develop the radar independently or buy it from abroad," another military officer said.

The military is developing several models including low-frequency radar.

"Experts predict that stealth-detection radar will be developed in four to five years," Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told the National Assembly's Defense Committee last month.

A military source said, "Nobody knows how much it'll cost to develop a stealth-detection radar because none exists so far."

China, Japan and Russia are all developing or planning to procure stealth fighter jets between 2016 and early 2020.

China is developing two kinds of stealth fighters.

In December 2011, Japan picked the F-35 stealth fighter jet as its main next-generation fighter model and decided to procure 42 of them starting in 2016.

Russia is developing a stealth fighter with the goal of deploying it warfare-ready in 2016.

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The Korean military has reportedly succeeded in developing the core technology for stealth fighter planes. Stealth technology is used to disguise aircraft or vessels from detection by radar, infrared or sound detectors. Stealth is considered a key field in future warfare, and world military powers such as the U.S., China, Japan and Russia have been focusing efforts on developing it.

A Korean military source on Monday said that the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) and other local defense research institutes began developing stealth fighter technology and application systems in 1999. They developed radar absorbent material by the end of 2002, and are now aiming to finish developing all core technologies for functional stealth by mid-2010.

Military authorities plan to finish tests of some of the radar absorbent material for application to weapons systems, including fighter jets, by the end of this year.

According to the military source, top-secret ground tests were done on F-4 fighter jets and miniature jet fighter models equipped with the radar absorbent material until 2007. The tests were satisfactory. It has not been revealed if the domestically developed material is ordinary paint or come in some other form. F-117 fighter bombers, an early U.S. stealth aircraft, used thick stealth painting. The newer F-22 stealth fighters reportedly use a much thinner coating.

The ADD and other local defense research institutes have also developed stealth configuration technology to design fighter jets and vessels that can effectively avoid radar detection.

The military source explained that Korea is developing stealth technology as "U.S. F-22s are already deployed for war-related duties, and neighboring countries such as China, Russia and Japan are striving to secure the stealth technology and apply it to their weapons systems with the aim of securing command of the air in Northeast Asia."

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