PACER (Phased Array Concepts Evaluation Rig): design, development and adaptive beamforming experiments

PACER (Phased Array Concepts Evaluation Rig) is an experimental, receive only, phased array that has been designed and built at DERA Malvern. The array operates at X band and has been constructed as a facility to support DERA research associated with the tri-national AMSAR airborne phased array demonstrator programme, and other future generation phased array radar systems. PACER is a unique facility, and the flexibility of the design offers considerable scope for practical research into adaptive array signal processing and future research associated with advanced phased array concepts (wideband operation, RCS reduction, bistatic operation, element level digitisation approaches). To date, the array has been used primarily as a source of real phased array data for validation of adaptive beamforming techniques. This paper includes some detail of the design and build of PACER in addition to the results of adaptive array signal processing experiments to demonstrate jamming rejection and estimation of the directions of closely spaced sources.