Electronically Scanned Phased Array Antenna (ESA)

The United States Special Operations Command has a need for a common radar system for its aviation fleet. Currently there are four Terrain Following/Terrain Avoidance (TF/TA) radars and one weather radar in the Special Operations Forces (SOF) inventory. Critical to achieving a common radar is developing a common antenna. To this end, the goal of this Phase I study is to develop a single, common low-cost and lightweight Electronically Scanned Antenna (ESA) that can be employed for all SOF fixed, rotary wing, and tilt-rotor aircraft. Performance benefits include rapid beam scanning, beam agility, the performance of multiple functions such as TF/TA navigation and weather detection, commonality amongst SOF aircraft, reduced support costs, and increased reliability. Typically these gains are obtained at the expense of large increases in overall system cost and weight when employed a classical ESA architecture consisting of discrete elements, such as T/R modules. Radant Technologies has developed a novel approach to electronic beam steering that is predicted to meet the low cost, lightweight, and technical requirements of the SOF Common Radar. This approach, the Radant Lens ESA, employs bulk phase shifting to avoid using discrete elements behind each element and hence is intrinsically lightweight and low-cost.