Electronic warfare (EW) systems are an increasingly critical component of modern warfare. They seek to control and exploit the electromagnetic spectrum to gain an advantage over adversaries while preventing them from reciprocating. This includes detecting and denying the use of radar systems and GPS. There are three main sectors within electronic warfare. Electronic attack (EA) focuses on acts designed to disrupt, degrade, destroy or deceive. Electronic protection (EP) seeks to diminish the effectiveness of adversarial EA systems. Electronic support (ES) extracts signal information for intelligence purposes.

In complex radio frequency (RF) applications, “wideband” has varying definitions depending on both the application of interest and the portion of the RF circuit you’re focused on. Wideband can be used to describe the entire spectrum shown in Figure 1 or large portions of it.   

Low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) in radio frequency (RF) receivers are designed to amplify low-amplitude signals (i.e., less than -100 dBm) from an antenna without decreasing their signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In radar applications, a strong SNR increases the likelihood of detecting a target, so LNAs play an important functional role (Figure 1). Effective targeting requires both high resolution and high accuracy. A strong SNR translates to high accuracy.  

Electrical arcing can cause any number of issues in a circuit that lead to unreliable operation. Without effective snubbing, arcing is associated with early failures in relays, switch contacts and solid-state components (e.g., SCRs and TRIACs). 

When it comes to aerospace and defense applications, every single component plays a role in the success and longevity of the system. Capacitors are vital in flight control systems, radar systems, signal intelligence equipment and more. They support functions across guidance and control systems, electronic warfare (EW) and power supply units. To best support these development projects, Knowles sought MIL-PRF-55681 qualification for ten capacitor styles we manufacture and test in the United States. With this qualification, you can be assured that you’re using robust and dependable ceramic capacitors in your mission-critical systems. 

The types of threats facing radar systems are continuing to diversify. To adapt, the industry is evolving toward fully digital arrays that can support a variety of mission profiles. As these systems grow more and more complex, component-level decisions have an increasingly significant impact on overall performance.   

Monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) amplifiers are widely used in defense radar systems. The industry recognizes them as a compact, high-performance option that’s reliable and easy to integrate. Whether they serve a receive (e.g., low noise amplifier (LNA)) or transmit (e.g., power amplifier (PA)) function, MMIC amplifiers rely on bypass capacitors to perform their core function to amplify microwave signals. 

In radar systems, power amplifiers serve an essential role in transmitting signals that probe the environment of interest. They boost signal strength and maintain its quality to achieve the intended range and resolution of the overall system.

This is the fifth installment in our RF Components for Radar series. In the first installment, we provided an overview of the key functional units in radar, including duplexing, filtering, power amplification, waveform generation, low-noise amplification (LNA), receiving and analog-to-digital conversion (ADC). Since then, we’ve covered duplexing, switch filter banks and filters in detail. In this post, we’ll discuss what phase can tell us about filter performance in radar applications.

This is the second installment in our RF Components for Radar series. In the first installment, we provided an overview of the key functional units in radar, including duplexing, filtering, power amplification, waveform generation, low-noise amplification (LNA), receiving and analog-to-digital conversion (ADC). Here, we’ll focus on duplexing.