Reconfigurable Micro-Electronic-Scan Radar Sensor for Airborne Hazard See-and-Avoid

Sense-and-Avoid operation capabilities are critical to future UAVs in national airspace. Developing a radar sensor having potential to meet the size, weight and power (SWaP) and detection/tracking requirements is a real challenge. Intelligent Automation, Inc. (IAI) and its partner, the University of Oklahoma, have been working on this issue since 2004, and have developed a suite of technologies from ultra-wideband waveform sensing, multi-sensor synchronization, detection and discrimination under severe weather (IMC) condition, to the transponder-based primary radar sensing. Based on the existing experience and technology innovations, we propose to build a new reconfigurable, integrated, electronic scanning radar platform. The new sensor will operate on dual-frequency bands (S band and C-band) with Doppler analysis capability. We propose to use a Reconfigurable Digital Radar Transceiver (RDRT), which provides flexibility in mission specific radar waveform design, without hardware modifications, and on-board digital signal processing capability to analyze radar returns. The RDRT designed by IAI is capable of simultaneously synthesizing/ processing 32 digital channels with 10’s of MHz bandwidth in each channel, making it ideal for fast scanning array radar and Digital beam Forming (DBF). BENEFIT: The proposed Sense-and-Avoid radar will facilitate the commercial operations of UAS systems for agriculture, fire fighting, and security monitoring as well as transit of military UAS through the NAS without restrictive limitations as currently imposed by the FAA. The proposed technology is built upon the radar design and communications expertise of IAI and our sub-contractors at OU. The most promising commercial applications outside of DoD are: • Weather surveillance • Commercial aircraft collision avoidance and safety