Expendable Active RF Technology for Helicopters (EARTH)

Passive expendable threat countermeasures have been the primary mechanism for defeating radar-guided threats to rotary wing aircraft. These dispenser systems interface directly with the Radar Warning Receiver (RWR) to select the best response to a detected threat. The modern generation of RF threats has become smarter and added agile emissions in order to see through passive countermeasures. DRFMs are active countermeasure systems that use memory to delay or store threat pulses and then digitally re-modulate the signals to produce realistic coherent false targets. SPEC is proposing a fast moving program to develop and field the worlds most advanced expendable active RF countermeasures for the protection of Rotary Wing Aircraft and ultimately for the protection of all airframes. A DRFM typically consists of RF up/down-converter sections, ADC and DAC sections, and a high speed digital signal processor with memory. Recent advances in materials and technology offer unprecedented levels of heterogeneous on-chip integration of RF, mixed-signal, and digital signal processing circuits. SPEC proposes to develop an expendable active countermeasure system design for modern threats, using integrated, substrate level, heterogeneous technologies and packaging necessary to satisfy SWaP requirements, and extremely demanding aerodynamic performance specifications that account for rotor wash of the aircraft.