Elec Tricks: Turning AESA Radars Into Broadband Comlinks

F-22 Cutaway(click to view full) The F/A-22 and F-35‘s advanced built-in radars and electronics can be levered to turn these planes into electronic warfare aircraft. Meanwhile, some of the key trends in military I/O highlight the increasing need for high-bandwidth links. That need is biting with equal or greater force between aircraft, and between aircraft and other platforms, as the increasingly rich array of combat data available finds itself constricted by older protocols and low-bandwidth linkages. As it turns out, the solution may have been sitting right under their noses. The Concept AN/APG-77 Test Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that Northrop Grumman and L-3 Communications came up with an interesting finding while doing private research in this area: active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars can also be modified to send and receive large amounts of information at high data rates. While the demonstration was done using the F/A-22’s ultra-advanced 1,500+ element AN/APG-77 radar, the engineers involved say the idea should work with any AESA radar (the F-15C/SG’s new APG-63v2/3, the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler‘s APG-79, the F-16 E/F Block 60’s new APG-80, or the F-35 JSF Lightning II’s APG-81). The system may even get increased bandwidth […]