Threats such as drones, aircraft, and cruise/ballistic missiles may simultaneously attack deployed U.S. forces or America's allies from multiple directions in the future. Raytheon will soon upgrade the combat-proven Patriot Air and Missile Defense System's radar that provides 360-degrees of protection from those threats.
They have completed a series of engineering milestones that involve upgrading the Patriot radar main array with GaN based Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology. Raytheon engineers, who are currently constructing a GaN-based AESA full size main panel radar array, are on track to having a full-scale main array demonstrator operational in early 2016.
The Raytheon-built GaN-based AESA Patriot uses three antenna arrays mounted on a mobile radar shelter to provide 360-degrees of radar coverage. The main AESA array is a bolt-on replacement antenna for the current Gallium Arsenide based antenna. The GaN-based AESA array measures roughly 9' wide x 13' tall, and is oriented toward the primary threat. Patriot's new rear panel arrays are a quarter the size of the main array and let the system look behind and to the sides of the main array, enabling Patriot to engage threats in all directions.
Earlier this year, Raytheon built a GaN-based AESA Patriot rear-panel array, integrated it with the current Patriot radar using the existing, recently modernized, back-end processing hardware and software, and tracked targets of opportunity to seamlessly create a 360-degree view.
The milestones include completing construction of the AESA main array structure and constructing the AESA arrays' radar shelter. Also, integrating receivers and a radar digital processor into the radar shelter and delivering the shelter to Raytheon's test facility in Pelham, N.H along with testing the radar's cooling sub-system.
Raytheon's GaN-based AESA Patriot radar will work with future open architecture as Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System and retains backwards compatibility with the current Patriot Engagement Control Station. It is also fully interoperable with NATO.
