Digital Array Radar panel development

The Army Digital Array Radar (DAR) project's goal is to demonstrate how wide-bandgap semiconductor technology, highly-integrated transceivers, and the ever-increasing capabilities of commercial digital components can be leveraged to provide new capabilities and enhanced performance in future low-cost phased array systems. A 16-element, S-band subarray has been developed with panel-integrated, plastic-packaged gallium-nitride (GaN) amplifiers, multi-channel transceiver ICs, and digitization at the element level. In addition to full digital beamforming on transmit and receive, the DAR subarray has demonstrated efficient RF power generation exceeding 25 Watts per element, in-situ, element-level calibration monitoring and self-correction capabilities, simultaneous transmit and receive operation through subarray partitioning for an indoor target tracker, and more. An overview is given of these results and capabilities.