Fully Digital AESA Sensor Scalable and Reconfigurable
Northrop Grumman has moved its first Electronically-Scanned Multifunction Reconfigurable Integrated Sensor (EMRIS) into integration and test.
“The sensor’s architecture is easily scaled and reconfigurable, including a variety of mounting configurations, for a wide applicability across platforms and domains,” explained Krys Moen, VP Advanced Mission Capabilities. “By developing EMRIS in an open-architecture construct, we can rapidly add new or improved capabilities to increase performance while avoiding redesign. This supports decades of fielded use and continued access to industry best-in-class capabilities”.
EMRIS’s fully digital active electronically scanned array (AESA) uses technology from the DARPA Arrays on Commercial Timescales (ACT) programme, combined with government open-architecture standards. By applying the flexibility of a digital AESA, EMRIS enables functions including radar, EW and communications simultaneously.
Multifunction apertures consolidate multiple functions into a single sensor, decreasing both the number of apertures needed and the size, weight and power requirements for the advanced capabilities. Sophisticated multifunction apertures like EMRIS can deploy several functions simultaneously. As part of EMRIS’s integration and test phase, Northrop Grumman is demonstrating the ability to quickly leverage technology developed for other programmes, to adapt multiple fielded capabilities into EMRIS.
EMRIS was designed using common building blocks and software containerisation, allowing for rapid, cost-effective production. The sensor’s design leverages commercial processes and materials, including the 5G tech base, driving down cost and increasing the quality and reliability of the components.
