Development of Digital Receiver/Exciters for Missile Defense Radars (2007058)

The primary function of missile defense radars is to detect and intercept incoming missiles. As the technology for missile systems is advanced, the next generation of missiles will have added capabilities to deploy countermeasures and masking techniques to foil radar detection. The next generation of radars therefore, must also have added capabilities to counter those advanced threats. One crucial need for the next generation of radar exciters is the technology for frequency agility and waveform modulation. For exciters, Hittite offers a family of products that make up phase-locked frequency synthesizers. They include VCOs and frequency dividers, programmable counters, phase-frequency detectors, loop amplifiers, and completely integrated phase-locked oscillators. Use of such components can greatly reduce size/weight and power consumption. In addition, the use of high-speed digital-to-analog converters (DACs) provides a means to obtain ultra wideband frequency and phase modulation at a high intermediate frequency (IF). The X-band output in our proposed exciter is obtained with a single upconversion as opposed to the more traditional double upconversion method. Thus the use of high-speed DACs reduces the amount of RF circuitry required in the exciter and moves the high-speed processing closer to the antenna as desired.