ELECTRONIC PROTECTION (EP) FOR ELECTRONICALLY STEERED ANTENNAS (ESAs)

The rapid beam agility and wide bandwidth achievable with modern electronically scanned antennas (ESAs), and particularly active ESAs (AESAs), provide airborne radars with a means for electronic protection (EP) against electronic attack (EA) threats in a hostile environment.TSC proposes an EP technique that explits the beam agility characteristics of the ESA to mitigate the deleterious effects of deception jammers (particularly DRFM-based) such as multiple false targets in range and Doppler, and pull off deceptions such as RGPO, BGPO, and coordinated RGPO/VGPO. Combined with off-boresight tracking, the technique can also reject angle-deception jammers such as cross-eye, cross polarizaiton, blinking, and terrain bounce. The simultaneous use of frequency agility will further enhance the EP technique. The technique, denoted Beam-Agility Target Modulation and Discrimination (BATMAD), exploits the rapid beam switiching capability of the modern ESA to modulate target and jammer signals. Using unique jammer discrimination processing in the sum and difference channels, the signals are sorted and classified. Target signals are processed, while jammer signals are rejected.In Phase I, TSC will investigate the feasibility of the BATMAD concept, with the support of Raytheon Systems Company. The technique will be demonstrated in Phase II using simulations and bench-test radar hardware.