Many think that radar is a mature field, nothing new to happen, it having been around a long time. Nothing can be further from the truth. When I entered the field in the ’50s I thought the same thing. The MIT Radiation Lab. Series 28 book volume set summarizing the highly classified World War II work on radar was just published and provided the definitive coverage and there was to be nothing more to learn. How wrong I was. Since then many amazing new developments have taken place. And astounding developments are still taking place. We live in exciting times. We will cover the following recent outstanding breakthroughs in this talk:

1. Integrated circuits at microwaves (MMIC): Makes it possible to have:

a. Active arrays for applications not feasible before, like simultaneously air-to-air and air-to-ground modes on the F-15.

b. Whole T/R module on a single chip costing $10 at X-band.

c. $19K active phased array costing $30 per element.

d. 8 active array receive channels on one chip -- disruptive technology.

2. SiGe, CMOS: Offer potential for low-cost, low-power active phased arrays.

3. Packaging and Assembly of Phased Arrays Using Commercial Printed Circuit Boards (PCB): Provides low cost arrays.

4. MEMS (Micro-ElectroMechanical Systems): Reliability has increased 3 orders of magnitude in 3 years. Has potential for providing arrays at 1/10^th the cost.

5. Wide bandgap GaN and SiC MMIC chips: Potential of one to two orders increase in transister power.

6. Digital Beam Forming (DBF): Provides the advantages of:

a. Multiple beams.

b. Lower search power and occupancy by up to a factor of 2.

c. Fully adaptive array performance without having to do a large matrix inversion (Adaptive-Adaptive Array).

7. MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Outputs): This is the hot topic now. It is not all fantasy. Practical applications are:

a. Coherent combining of radars. With 2 radars we get a 9 dB increase in sensitivity.

b. Maximum signal-to-clutter interference through optimum adaption at the receiver of the transmitter as well as receiver array weights for clutter suppression.

8. Haystack Upgrade: 3 cm Resolution Imaging.

9. SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar): 4" Resolution achieved.

10. Wideband Antennas:

a. 1.8 to 18 GHz instantaneous bandwith array built by Raytheon.

b. 33:1 Instantaneous bandwidth antenna built by GTRI; 100:1 possible.

11. Vacuum Tubes:

a. Coherent gyrotron amplifiers: Now available at mm-waves.

b. Bandwidth, power, reliability, and efficiency greatly increased.

12. Metamaterials: Revolutionary negative index of refraction material can:

a. Stealth a radar target.

b. Permit focusing beyond the diffraction limit. Moore’s Law marches on.

13. Adaptive Array Processing and Space Time Adaptive Processing (STAP):

13. KASSPER: Applies available environment knowledge to STAP to reduce false alarms by order of magnitude.

Dr. Eli Brookner received his BEE from The City College of the City of New York, ’53, MEE and Dr. Sc from Columbia University in ’55 and ’62. He has been at the Raytheon Company since 1962, where he is a Principal Engineering Fellow. There he has worked on the ASDE-X radar, ASTOR Air Surveillance Radar, RADARSAT II, Affordable Ground Based Radar (AGBR), major Space Based Radar programs, NAVSPASUR S-Band upgrade, CJR, COBRA DANE, PAVE PAWS, MSR, COBRA JUDY, THAAD, Brazilian SIVAM, SPY-3, AEGIS, BMEWS, UEWR, Surveillance Radar Program (SRP), and COBRA DANE Upgrade. Prior to Raytheon he worked on radar at Columbia University Electronics Research Lab. [now RRI], Nicolet and Rome AF Lab.

He received the IEEE 2006 Dennis J. Picard Medal for Radar Technology & Application "For Pioneering Contributions to Phased Array Radar System Designs, to Radar Signal Processing Designs, and to Continuing Education Programs for Radar Engineers"; IEEE ’03 Warren White Award; Journal of the Franklin Institute Premium Award for best paper award for 1966; IEEE Wheeler Prize for Best Applications Paper for 1998. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, AIAA, and MSS. He has published four books: Tracking and Kalman Filtering Made Easy, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1998; Practical Phased Array Antenna Systems (1991), Aspects of Modern Radar (1988), and Radar Technology (1977), Artech House. He gives courses on Radar, Phased Arrays and Tracking around the world (23 countries). Over 10,000 have attended these courses. He was banquet speaker and keynote speaker six times. He has over 110 papers, talks and correspondences to his credit. In addition, he has over 80 invited talks and papers.

The meeting will be held at the Lincoln Lab Auditorium at 4:00 PM. Refreshments will be served at 3:30 PM.  Registration is in the main lobby.  Foreign national visitors to Lincoln Lab require visit requests.  Please pre-register by e-mail to reception@ll.mit.edu and indicate your citizenship. You will not receive a confirmation of your pre-registration, however, your badge will be ready for you when you register. Please use the Wood Street Gate.  For directions go to http://www.ll.mit.edu For other information, contact Ed Altshuler, Chairman, at (781)377-4662, or edward.altshuler@hanscom.af.mil