The rise of commercial aviation for freight transport and travel has propelled the growth of rapid advancements in recent air traffic control systems. Present ATC systems are divided into two main subsystems, en-route, and terminal. The en-route subsystem is primarily concerned with the aircraft moving and cruising at higher altitudes and the terminal subsystem handles aircraft flying at lower speeds and altitudes as they arrive and depart from airports.
The major component that supports their two main subsystems is a variety of surveillance radars. Air Surveillance Radar (ASR) systems, Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) systems, Precision Approach Radar (PAR) systems, surface movement radars (SMR), and special weather radars.
Presently, many surveillance radars still utilize conventional traveling wave tubes (TWTAs) and magnetron-based transmitters but due to their limited capabilities, users are transitioning to solid-state technology. The transmitter component of a radar system must be efficient, reliable, compact in size and weight, and must be easily maintained. It should also generate low-noise and stable transmissions to mitigate any unwanted signals from being picked up.
With industry problems in mind, RFHIC provides an array of solutions for next-generation surveillance radar applications. The solutions for next-generation surveillance radar applications include:
15 kW, S-band Transmitter System
The RRT273115K-690 is a 15kW, S-band transmitter system designed to meet the air traffic control requirements of surveillance detection, tracking, and identification in an adverse clutter environment.
The RRT273115K-690 is a turn-key transmitter system that comes equipped with a power supply unit, control module, and scalable amplifier shelves all housed in a single 19” rack-mount system for simplified system integration and rapid deployment.
The transmitter system is equipped completely with gallium-nitride (GaN) solid-state power amplifiers maintaining system stability for coherent processing. The system operates at the full band with pulse-to-pulse frequency agility. The RRT273115K-690 has an average mean time between critical failure of more than 50,000 hours, ensuring superior system reliability and system stability necessary for mission-critical applications.
10W, X-band GaN Transmit/Receive Module
The RRM8894010-M1D is a 10W, X-band transmit and receive module designed for precision approach radar (PAR) systems.
The RRM8894010-MID provides key features such as noise immunity and range extension for SPI Bus using the LVDS interface. A 6-bit phase and attenuation control and a low noise figure result in a precise and accurate receive signal.
550W, L-band, GaN Pallet Amplifier
The RRP1214550-14 is a 550W, L-band gallium-nitride (GaN) on silicon carbide (SiC) pallet amplifier designed ideally for en-route ATC subsystems.
The RRP1214550-14 features wide-band frequency agility providing high visibility in various types of environments. The compact amplifier is easily combinable achieving rapid scalability for higher power radar systems.
The RRP1214550-14 provides a duty cycle of 15% and a pulse width of 500 us with a typical efficiency of 65%. Having designed with RFHIC’s GaN on SiC devices allow the amplifier to be smaller in footprint and reduces the complexity of the overall amplifier with ever-increasing improvement in efficiency and power.
In addition to the products featured, RFHIC also offers a variety of standard GaN-based amplifiers and transmitter systems designed ideally for air traffic control radar and surveillance radar applications.
