Cobham Develops mm-Wave Active Electronically Scanned Arrays for Radars & Surveillance Applications

Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions (CAES), a leading provider of mission-critical electronic solutions, has announced the capability to develop new millimeter wave (mmW) Active Electronically Scanned Arrays (AESA) for airborne early warning radar, intercept or acquisition control, ballistic missile warning and acquisition surveillance, mapping and missile tracking and guidance applications. Frequencies under development include Ka-Band and W-Band. Due to the technical challenges of deploying AESA architectures in this frequency range, CAES is one of only a handful of organizations with the capability to develop such solutions.

Jeff Hassannia, Senior Vice President of Business Development, Strategy and Technology for Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions, commented that their AESA technology incorporates the best capabilities from the broad portfolio of technologies, representing an integrated aperture to data architecture. As one of only a handful of companies able to provide this capability, Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions is able to achieve this milestone due to their legacy in antenna and aperture design and mastery of the front end of advanced systems combined with the familiarity with the needs of aerospace and defense customers. It is critical to offer cutting-edge sensor technologies in partnership with their customers to deliver solutions aligned with program needs and the needs of the warfighters. 

Advanced packaging of System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solutions with fully integrated subsystems widen opportunities to deliver this strategically important technology to defense primes and key subsystem providers. Its modular, extremely scalable design allows system designers to deploy anywhere from a few elements to thousands, as the application requires.

The CAES mmW AESA leverages SoC Integrated Circuit (IC) technology and innovative packaging techniques such as flip-chip and bumped die. Additionally, it boasts higher transmit power and rugged assemblies for integrated multi-channel Gallium Nitride (GaN) Transmit/Receive Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMIC). 

The evolving Multiple Inputs Multiple Outputs (MIMO) feature offers extended virtual receive channels, improved angular resolution, and interference immunity associated with digitally coded channels. These extended capabilities will also offer improved range resolution, better signal to noise ratio (SNR) at similar frame rates, and faster updates with short system cycles. The system will also switch between phase array modes and massive MIMO processing mode or a combination thereof.  Advanced digital processing ICs utilizing these capabilities result in four-dimensional (4D) detection datasets with spatial position and velocity for many targets. 

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