TAIWAN AESA FINDS NO HOME
NCSIST's Failure to be Appreciated
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2 March 2023 (Sunday)
TAIWAN AESA FINDS NO HOME
NCSIST's Failure to be Appreciated
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德
TAIPEI - This might sound like a commercial, but it is not. The question, unanswered, is why Taiwan’s AESA is not of interest to the international defense market?
Taiwan’s military-run National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) designs, develops, and builds some of the most advanced military equipment in the world.
Radars are developed under the NCSIST’s Electronic Systems Research Division (ESRD).
But for some mysterious reason no one wants to buy from NCSIST.
Below is the 2017 brochure from the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition (TADTE) along with photographs for paid subscribers. The next TADTE is in September of this year and expected to be the largest in history.
Taiwan’s NCSIST in 2017 showed off the new Airborne Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar for fighter aircraft.
However, the AESA was not used for the new upgrades of the Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF). Instead the IDF went with a derivative of the AN/APG-67.
AESA is one of the most difficult radars in the world to develop for combat aircraft, and NCSIST’s AESA has impressive parameters.
These include air-to-air, air-to-ground, ground image mapping, ground moving targeting indication, electronic counter-counter measures (ECCM), missile guidance. multiple-tracking, ground-moving target indication (GMTI), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and clutter restriction.
Even for a training aircraft, suicide drone, or reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), this radar could serve customers as required.
This is the AESA T/R module sample that appeared both at the 2017 TADTE and Paris Airshow.
AESA T/R module [TRM = transmit/receive module]
• Type
Output power of TRM12W• Development
The NCSIST T/R module is designed for the active phased array radar application. It utilizes the state-of-the-art 15W GaAs [gallium arsenide] MMIC [monolithic microwave integrated circuit] power amplifier to maximize the power output of T/R module to 12W. A circulator is used to provide the duplexer function with limiter and SPDT [single pole double throw switch] switch to protect the receiver from reflected power. The noise figure of the Low noise amplifier (LNA) is less than 1.2dB.The 6-bit attenuator and phase shifter are designed for the amplitude and phase modulation with 0.5dB and 5.625° resolution. They are located in the common arm of transmit and receive path.
A digital compensation algorithm is applied to increase the variation phase accuracy to ±3° and the amplitude control to ±0.25dB. These functions are achieved through the internal FPGA [field-programmable gate array] and flash memory operation to build up the lookup table. If higher output power is required, we can replace the GaAs PA [power amplifier] module with the GaN [gallium nitride] power amplifier to obtain 50W or higher power output with the same amplitude and phase control accuracy.
• Description
The Transmit/Receive module or T/R module is the most important core technology for the development of active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The AESA radar generally consists of thousands of T/R modules which can individually spread their signal emissions out across a band of the frequencies and sensitively receive the echoes from target objects, allowing it to broadcast transmitting signals while still remaining stealthy and greatly increasing the detection and tracking abilities. Through the adaptive beam shaping, AESA radars also have high capability to resist jammer.Due to the utilization of all solid state T/R modules and graceful degradation of array performance, AESA radar is much more reliable than PESA [passive electronically scanned array] radar which results in low maintenance cost. That is why all the developed countries dedicate on the development of AESA radar.
• Specifications
1. Maximum GaAs MMIC PA output:15W
2. Output power of TRM：12W
3. 6-bit phase and amplitude modulation
4. Digital compensation
5. Phase variation accuracy:±3°
6. Amplitude variation accuracy:±0.25dB
7. GaN PA is optional• Status
If higher output power is required, we can replace the GaAs PA module with the GaN power amplifier to obtain 50W or higher power output with the same amplitude and phase control accuracy.
Note the illustration behind the radar suggests mounting them on the IDF, though this did not happen.
