Digital Radar Tech to enable distributed sensing
Sandia National Laboratories photo
Severna Park, Maryland – A new digital radar architecture under development at Sandia National Laboratories is intended to revolutionize military intelligence.
The new technology replaces analog signal processing hardware with digital-based signal processing firmware and downloadable software for various missions into a small toolbox-sized piece that connects to existing and future sensors.
“Radar has evolved from a few excellent sensors to a distributed one. [electronic warfare]distributed communication, distributed intelligence style,” says Jacques Louis, technical lead for Sandia’s multi-mission radar frequency architecture.
The architecture allows a single sensor to perform multiple functions “like a Swiss army knife,” reducing space, weight and power requirements, Lui said. Hypothetically speaking, the sensors could be embedded in a variety of drones, manned aircraft, and weapons to create a network of distributed data networks that could communicate and collaborate.
The flexibility of the digital architecture allows a sensor to mount an EW mission on one type, then perform intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance on the next.
He said it has the potential to help realize the military’s vision of replacing expensive, mission-critical aircraft like the EA-18G Growler with less expensive drones and smart weapons.
The rapidly upgradeable, reconfigurable architecture uses advanced electronic components developed for 5G mobile phone systems. Sandia is optimizing them as digital processing devices for converting large amounts of analog data into digital signals. For example, the devices can convert analog synthetic aperture radar — used for tracking and intelligence — into a digital version.
5G components also allow sensors to receive and transmit large amounts of data over a much wider bandwidth and process it in real time within the sensor.
“The data is made into actionable products,” said Louis. “It doesn’t require post-processing.”
The new architecture is jamming-resistant because users can digitally modify or change the transmitted signals in real time. This makes them difficult to identify, he said.
“It can generate very high-resolution images, but we’re not dealing with ‘chirp’ waveforms,” he says. Any adversary who has ever seen a screamer knows they’ve been filmed,” Louie said.
The technology is currently being tested on the de Havilland Twin Otter aircraft and could be operational as early as 2025, according to the lab.
Topics: Electronics, new technologies, intelligence and surveillance
