A family of Secondary Surveillance Radars based on Conformal Antenna array geometries

A SSR (Secondary Surveillance Radar)/IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) Radar family based on a conformal phased-array antenna geometries is presented in this work. The systems don't use rotating parts (i.e. rotary joint) increasing the reliability and reducing in service costs for site installation where the environmental condition are extreme (as for example in desert area or icy sites). A scalable antenna architecture and beamforming is presented, achieving interesting common designs of critical items. The 360° conical shape of the antenna ground plane reduces the radar-cross-section and allows electronic scanning in spite of mechanical rotation and eliminates the scan-loss or coning typical of planar array geometries. A 128 radiating elements conformal arrays has been built and tested in an antenna test facility showing satisfactory agreement with the theoretical model.