Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT)
Abstract
Phased arrays are critical military subsystems with widespread applications in communications, electronic warfare and radar. The DoD relies heavily on phased arrays to maintain technological superiority in nearly every theater of conflict. The DoD cannot update these high cost specialized arrays at the pace necessary to effectively counter adversarial threats under development using commercial-of-the-shelf components that can undergo technology refresh far more frequently. The Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT) program will develop adaptive and standardized digital-at-every-element arrays. New advances in digital circuits at every element in an array panel will allow for ubiquitous phased array technology with heretofore unrealized spectral coverage and capabilities. This program will take a fundamental look at the role of digital arrays and how commonality and aggregation can be affected by emerging capabilities. Simultaneously, this effort will focus on the development of arrays which can quickly create different unique RF personalities/capabilities on top of common digital hardware. The project will demonstrate levels of diversity in the use of the electromagnetic spectrum which are severely limited by the current approach of hand-designing the array with heavily specialized RF beamformers that are unique to each system. This program also has related applied research efforts funded under PE 0602716E, Project ELT-01.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2016
- Source ID
- b421a6fd00a0139022cee28bb35ce085