Digital RF Fuze Module

Short duration pulsed radar and ladar technology offers many advantages in missile fuzing applicaitons. In order to make this technology feasible, miniature wide bandwidth transmit/receive switches, transmitter/receiver isolation or limiting techniques, high speed analog-to-digital converters, and signal processing techniques must be developed. Radar pulses are approaching minimum pulse widths of 100 picoseconds with a 20 nanosecond pulse repetition interval (PRI). To capture such pulses, sample rates as high as 20 giga samples per second (GSPS) are desired.Systems & Processes Engineering Corporation (SPEC) proposes to development a Radar Data Acquisition Module (RDAM) for capture of received pulses produced by a high performance radar fuze sensor. The module design uses state-of-the-art Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) analog-to-digital converter and control/multiplexer(s), and high speed memory integrated circuits integrated into a Multi-Chip Module (MCM) to meet the stringent volume, performance, power, thermal, and shock requirements. Under a Phase II effort, SPEC will develop the digital high speed RDAM MCM. In addition, SPEC proposes to investigate RF switching and limiting technologies to be applied to the frontend radar circuitry.