Dish to digital: Amazing growth in military radar antenna technology

Abstract

Radar is a vulnerable technology. Today’s military radar systems perform a variety of tasks which were not possible by the radar systems developed more than 6 decades ago during world war II. There has been continuous efforts towards upgrading the radar system and associated technologies with drastic improvement in the performance. Almost every current radar innovation owes its existence to the advances made in the antenna technology to achieve a very high efficiency and ultra low side lobes with computer intensive design. There has been a phenomenal growth in Military radar antenna technology over the last few decades. The present paper deals with the design and development of various types of antenna systems for different military radar applications & growth in the technology over last three decades in the country, particularly, at LRDE, a radar laboratory of Defence Research & Development Organization.