A Distributed Aperture Radar Technology for Enhanced Force Protection Against Tactical Airborne Threats

Propagation Research Associates, Inc., (PRA) proposes to fabricate and demonstrate the performance of a prototype for the innovative distributed aperture radar technology designed in Phase I. The Phase I technology was designed to use waveform diversity for effective implementation of fire control and engagement capabilities to defeat multiple attacks from any direction. Force protection against low-cost, ballistic threats imposes resource management challenges for a Fire Control Radar (FCR) that is charged with tracking and directing fire to negate these threats. An FCR is required to support several functions such as search, track, weapon assignment, target engagement, impact point prediction, and launch point estimation. The proposed PRA radar technology reduces radar resources required to deal with these functions through the implementation of three (or more) distributed phased arrays to provide enhanced multipath mitigation and improved accuracy over conventional radar architectures. The distributed aperture radar can implement both command guidance and a unique semi-active guidance concept in a single radar design without adding significant cost to a missile interceptor. The semi-active guidance technology integrates elements of command guidance and semi-active guidance to address saturated threat attacks without significantly impacting cost and radar resources.