All Digital Radar

Historically, radar hardware is designed for a particular application with particular analog hardware components. This greatly limits the flexibility of existing radar systems. Modern digital technology can be used to greatly increase radar hardware flexibility and capability. IMSAR has already designed, developed, and deployed a flexible digital radar, the NanoSAR C, that operates at >1 GHz RF bandwidth, uses a configurable direct digital synthesizer (DDS) for Tx signal generation, operates at many frequencies, and includes onboard FPGA and DSP technology for preprocessing. The proposed effort will improve the NanoSAR C by adding a pulsed-mode capability, enhancing the preprocessing and signal generation capabilities, and facilitating the interconnection of multiple units into a single array. The resulting radar design will be applicable with minimal modification to a wide range of applications, from spaceborne and seeker radars to SWaP-constrained ISR applications on UAVs. It will also be capable of performing complex functions such as anti-jamming; frequency hopping; pulse shaping; embedding data in transmit signals; and performing communications relay and SIGINT functions. The unprecedented configurability and capability of the resulting digital radar system will significantly increase the usefulness of radar equipment to the United States military and to other commercial organizations.