SWaP-CR Optimized L-Band High Power Dual Channel TRM With Extended Pulse Width
Swaraj Varshney, Benoy Kuriakose, Brajesh Kumar, Kilari Sreenivasulu · 2023
In active electronic scanning array (AESA) radars, Transmit/Receive module (TRM) is the most critical component, which dictates the performance and reliability of AESA. The figure-of-merits of TRM are peak transmit (Tx) output power, pulse width (PW), duty cycle (Duty) and receive (Rx) noise figure (NF) which dictate radar system performance; whereas size, weight, power, cost and reliability (SWaP-CR) as well as efficiency of TRM governs cooling load, dc power requirements and volume of active array antenna unit (AAAU) of AESA radars. This paper presents gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) power transistor based dual channel TRM (DTRM), which operates upto 2ms PW and max. 20% Duty with min. 50% efficiency ($\eta$) and delivers 400W peak power per channel with power droop<1dB over 200MHz bandwidth in L-band, having max. dimension of $215\times 105\times 62$ (in mm), simultaneously achieving SWaP-CR. Since design is targeted for application which needs large quantity of DTRMs, it is robust enough to incorporate all the tolerances associated with component, manufacturing, process and environmental conditions.