Chinese AESA development

L

latenlazy

Brigadier
SamuraiBlue said:
For ASEA?
I don't think so. Basically ASEA is conformed with many miniature radar antennas to create one big one.
They usually act separately scanning the field independently, that is why they do not require any mechanical moving parts. What it does is scan the field in a overlapping pattern so to cross check for faint signals that would have been considered as a false positive and discarded in conventional radars. It does not boost overall range just picks up more faint signals that may have been overlooked. Range can be boosted more easily with the amount of power output from the antennas but this results in another problem, heat disorder. That is why they are going for GaN chips so to reduce energy requirements.
Click to expand...
Being able to pick up more faint signals should also help range.
 
L

latenlazy

Brigadier
SamuraiBlue said:
For ASEA?
I don't think so. Basically ASEA is conformed with many miniature radar antennas to create one big one.
They usually act separately scanning the field independently, that is why they do not require any mechanical moving parts. What it does is scan the field in a overlapping pattern so to cross check for faint signals that would have been considered as a false positive and discarded in conventional radars. It does not boost overall range just picks up more faint signals that may have been overlooked. Range can be boosted more easily with the amount of power output from the antennas but this results in another problem, heat disorder. That is why they are going for GaN chips so to reduce energy requirements.
Click to expand...
Also, more area=more modules=more power. Thus more range, all else held equal.
 
Z

zaphd

New Member
Registered Member
SamuraiBlue said:
For ASEA?
I don't think so. Basically ASEA is conformed with many miniature radar antennas to create one big one.
They usually act separately scanning the field independently, that is why they do not require any mechanical moving parts. What it does is scan the field in a overlapping pattern so to cross check for faint signals that would have been considered as a false positive and discarded in conventional radars. It does not boost overall range just picks up more faint signals that may have been overlooked. Range can be boosted more easily with the amount of power output from the antennas but this results in another problem, heat disorder. That is why they are going for GaN chips so to reduce energy requirements.
Click to expand...
Array size also affects antenna gain for phased arrays. See bottom of the page at
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Where they have the equation
Gain = 4pi*antenna area*aperture efficiency/wavelength^2

Now if we look at the radar equation (wikigoogle it if your not familiar) you'll notice antenna gain helps with both receiving and transmitting, making it a more important factor than just the raw power for the theoretical max detection range.

Even if you divide the antenna in to subapertures for wide field search like you suggest, a larger antenna can have larger subapertures with higher gain. (I'm not sure how important this is since aesas scan super fast and can cover large angles with a narrow beam)
 
SamuraiBlue

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Well you'll always need to consider the over all power the plane can generate and how much can be diverted to radar. You'll also require communication, air purification system, navigational computer and so on.
Basically larger radar does not always equate to larger out put based on how much you can allocate power within a limited system.
As for utilizing received faint signals, better recognition algorithm with faster computing power is also a factor in spotting a target. Without this simply enlarging the radar does not equate to a better radar system in comparing one from the other.
 
Quickie

Quickie

Colonel
SamuraiBlue said:
Well you'll always need to consider the over all power the plane can generate and how much can be diverted to radar. You'll also require communication, air purification system, navigational computer and so on.
Basically larger radar does not always equate to larger out put based on how much you can allocate power within a limited system.
As for utilizing received faint signals, better recognition algorithm with faster computing power is also a factor in spotting a target. Without this simply enlarging the radar does not equate to a better radar system in comparing one from the other.
Click to expand...

A radar's total signal output is basically the superposition of the individual signal outputs of all the radar antenna elements (i.e. T/R modules) in the radar.

Yes, the bigger the size of the radar in terms of the number of T/R modules, the larger the output power of the radar, and also, the higher the receiving sensitivity of the radar because of the higher number of TR modules to receive the signals.

Of course, this is considering all else being equal, which should be the case in a general sense since the T/R modules basically use the same state-of-the-art technology, i.e. they being GaN based.
 
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