Raytheon Upgrades Patriot Missile Defense System With AESA Radar

Raytheon has upgraded its Patriot Air and Missile defense system’s radar with Gallium Nitride- (GaN) based Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology.

The engineering milestones involve upgrading the Patriot radar main array with Gallium Nitride- (GaN) based Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) technology, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

"The Raytheon-developed GaN-based AESA radar builds on the more than $150 million invested in GaN technology, and will be a simple upgrade for the more than 220 Patriot fire units fielded by the US and the 12 other Patriot partner nations," Ralph Acaba, vice president of Integrated Air and Missile Defense at Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business said.

"This upgrade is approved for export to all current Patriot partners and a number of future Patriot partner nations such as Poland. It enables 360-degrees of protection, while retaining Patriot's mobility and reducing operation and maintenance cost by as much as 50 percent," he added. 

The GaN-based AESA Patriot uses three antenna arrays mounted on a mobile radar shelter to provide 360-degrees of radar coverage. The main AESA array is a bolt-on replacement antenna for the current Gallium Arsenide based antenna.

The array measures roughly 9' wide x 13' tall, and is oriented toward the primary threat. Patriot's new rear panel arrays are a quarter the size of the main array and let the system look behind and to the sides of the main array, enabling Patriot to engage threats in all directions. 

Earlier this year, Raytheon built a GaN-based AESA Patriot rear-panel array, integrated it with the current Patriot radar using the existing, recently modernized, back-end processing hardware and software, and tracked targets of opportunity to seamlessly create a 360-degree view.