Technological challenges of a multifunction active phased array radar for weather, air traffic control and security applications

By means of Active Phased Array techniques, an integrated target/weather surveillance at medium range, i.e. for Terminal Manoeuvre Area in the frame of ATC and regional weather monitoring, is possible and affordable provided that cost reduction for Transmit/Receive modules makes phased array radar affordable to civilian users. The MPAR (Multifunction Phased Array Radar) architecture allows a single equipment to satisfy different requirements for Air Traffic Control, Weather monitoring and analysis, and Security applications. The key techniques needed to achieve the required performance are (a) interleaving of functions by careful scheduling, (b) digital beam forming for target surveillance and (c) fast (electronic) scanning for the weather surveillance. The core technologies are of course those needed to implement at low cost the Transmit/Receive module (TRM), that in the proposed architecture may transmit a low peak power (order of one Watt), compatible with the low-cost requirement.