Multifunction-Multimodal Airborne Radar in Maritime/Littoral Environments

Airborne maritime and littoral surveillance radar/ESM/ELINT in contested environments is facing an increasingly sophisticated set of threats due to ever evolving adversarial tactics and a global proliferation of enabling radio frequency (RF), high performance embedded computing (HPEC), and other technologies. Unfortunately, traditional airborne surveillance radar modes and waveforms are not sufficient to meet this emerging challenge. Far more sophisticated multifunction/multimodal maritime radar (M3R) and RF techniques, technologies and architectures are required to outpace this emerging set of threats.Many of these same adversarial advances and enabling technologies similarly afford a new opportunity to “reinvent” our own warfighting ISR capabilities. Advances in solid state transmitter technologies, cognitive and multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) radar techniques, wideband digital radio frequency (RF) circuits and systems, digital arbitrary waveform generators (DAWGs) and digital receiver exciters (DREX), and advanced HPEC have afforded an opportunity to broaden the scope of traditional radar functions and modes. From a hardware and HPEC perspective, it is now possible, theoretically, to perform a multitude of new and enhanced functions and modes including communications, electronic intelligence/signals intelligence (ELINT/SIGINT), electronic support measures (ESM), electronic attack (EA), electronic protection (EP), GPS denied terrain-aided navigation, and advanced target ID.