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High Frequency Design
Defense Electronics
Addressing the Challenges of
Radar and EW System Design
and Test using a Model-Based
Platform
By Dingqing Lu, Agilent Technologies
Radar systems have come a long way since their introduction in the
Today's designers require 1940's, today encompassing a broad range of applications, ranging from
a solution for designing, supermarket door openers to highly complex shipboard phased-array
verifying and testing their fire-control radars. Modern systems require higher performance to work
Radar and EW systems in in today's ever more complex Electronic Warfare (EW) environments,
an effective way. which include jamming and deception. As a result, EW systems must be
properly designed to effectively attack Radar systems. Modern Radar and
EW systems must also have the ability to reach out and touch the environments in which they
operate, detect and characterize sources of electronic noise such as RF jamming or co-location
antenna interference, and adapt the Radar's performance accordingly to compensate for that
interference. Moreover, EW specifications are always adjusted based on the environment.
Because of these challenges, today's designers require a solution for designing, verifying and
testing their Radar and EW systems in an effective way.
Challenges
Radar and EW systems operate in increasingly complex spectral environments with multi-
emitter input signals from Radar, military and commercial communication systems, as well
as different interferences, noise and clutter. Even in an urban center, the airwaves may
include countless wideband RF and microwave emitters--and therefore, potential interfer-
ers--such as wireless communications infrastructure, wireless networking systems and civil-
ian Radars.
This complexity poses a number of challenges when developing Radar and EW systems,
especially when coupled with new signal generation and processing requirements, and the
need to analyze different test cases. For example, how does the engineer reduce the time and
cost associated with developing these new systems, while also reducing the high cost of test-
ing and validation? How do they get all legacy Intellectual Property (IP) point tools to work
together with RF? And, how do they validate the performance of their complex Radar and EW
systems earlier/continuously, instead of waiting until final integration and test? Addressing
these challenges is critical ensuring the success of any Radar or EW system.
Introducing the Model-Based Platform
One way to quickly and effectively deal with these challenges is through use of a model-
based platform. The platform relies on simulation of Radar and EW systems with cross domain
architectures for signal processing and RF pieces, and visualized environments. It can also link
to high-performance Commercial Off-the-shelf (COTS) instruments, connecting the real world
with "simulation in the loop" to achieve greater flexibility and application awareness. Using a
model-based platform to design, verify and test Radar and EW systems, designers can create
22 High Frequency Electronics
High Frequency Design
Defense Electronics
Figure 1