According to a report published by Strategy Analytics, the global military radar market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.6% from 2017 - 2027 and be worth over $21.5 billion. Strategy Analytics' Advanced Defense Systems (ADS) service series of forecasts covering the global military radar market, has detailed global expenditure as well as system shipments across the land, air, sea and space domains.
According to the report, Military Radar Market Outlook 2017 to 2027, AESA (active electronically scanned array) architectures using GaN (gallium nitride) and GaAs (gallium arsenide) semiconductor technologies will drive considerable growth in the military radar market through 2027.
Suppliers of military radar systems are increasingly implementing AESA architectures at the core of their product offerings highlighting advances in performance as well as lifecycle and total cost of ownership advantages over traditional radar designs.
An AESA radar consists of a large number of transmit-receive modules that feed and collect multiple signals via an antenna array. Potential advantages of AESA architecture include high beam steering agility, very low radar signature when illuminated and extremely low side lobes. Being able to digitally control transmit-receive module gain, allows for refined power management which is vital for reduced or low probability of intercept (RPI, LPI) operation. In addition, AESA architectures enable software programmability that can provide progressive refinements in overall radar system performance.
From an operational perspective, the implementation of AESA architectures in military radar systems enables improvements in system reliability and reductions in total cost of ownership. The use of multiple transmit-receive modules (TRMs) means that even if a proportion of the TRMs fail, the radar itself can continue to function (referred to as graceful degradation) and be operated, with repairs effected alongside the scheduled downtime of a platform. This ensures mission continuity as well as imparting cost of ownership and operational cost benefits to the end-user.
AESA architectures have typically been GaAs-based, but the increased power, efficiency and robustness offered by GaN is being adopted by the defense industry across land-, air- and sea-based military radar systems. Although this does not mean that GaAs technology will no longer be used, any more than it would be unwise to suggest that there will no longer be demand for vacuum tube based RF transmitters. However, GaN is able to displace both GaAs (and other RF semiconductors) as well as vacuum tube technologies, which is why military radar demand for GaN is growing the fastest, with a CAGR of 19.0% through 2027.
Strategy Analytics series of forecasts cover the radar market in terms of expenditure (global, segmented by region), system shipments and segmentation of the market by radar type (application), frequency, power and also outline the associated market for components and semiconductor technologies.
Here are a list of their Forecasts for the Radar Market:
