Compact AESA for Airborne Self-Protection and Close-Support Jammers

Abstract

In the last two decades, Active Electronically Scanned Arrays (AESAs) technology has gained increasing popularity in a number of civil and defense applications. Among them, Airborne Jammers for Electronic Warfare (EW) systems benefit from the inherent capabilities, in term of achievable sensitivity and EIRP levels. Indeed, state-of-the-art performance are only attainable at the expense of increased array complexity, so that improving AESAs for Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) has already become a key design driver. The main aim of this contribution is to illustrate the design of a compact C to Ku band AESA unit for airborne pod installation, featuring an EIRP in excess of 65dBmi.