SBIR-STTR Award

The United States Navy currently uses klystron-based and high power modulator tube Radar Transmitters that are increasingly more expensive to own and operate. Daico proposes to ultimately replace specific tube-based Transmitters with fully Solid-State Transmitters (SSTx). The proposed feasibility study will demonstrate significantly higher standards for Availability (Ai), Reliability and Maintainability while reducing Total Cost of Ownership by adapting, to a shipboard environment, our proven, scalable transmitter architecture, called (m+n) Automatic Redundancy Technology Transmitter, (m+n) in short, for coherent transmitters. The (m+n) main building block is an innovative High Power Amplifier design that supports true hot-swapping, automatic failover and graceful power degradation. The first (m+n), invented in 2008 and deployed in a mission critical ASR-3 application in 2010, delivers >99.99% Ai. (m + n) has been commissioned for more than two years without any operating failures to date. The proposed feasibility study will confirm (m+n) is adaptable to shipboard environments, utilizing state of the art solid state technology, with capability >500kW peak output power in frequencies through C-Band. This proposal will demonstrate the feasibility of our innovative High Power Amplifier in various existing Radar Systems, like SPS-49, SPN-43, SPY-1B (Pre-driver), AeroStat and so forth.

Benefit:
This proposal will demonstrate the feasibility of our innovative High Power Amplifier in various existing Radar Systems, like SPS-49, SPN-43, SPY-1B (Pre-driver), AeroStat and so forth. This proposal will benefit transmitter applications requiring high power output and high Ai in ARMY, AIR FORCE, NOAA, FAA, and other commercial sectors.

Keywords:
upto C-Band, upto C-Band, Automatic Failover, Innovative High Power Amplifier, Redundancy, hot-swappable, >500kW peak out power

As solid state power device technology advances, many institutions have carried out studies and developed various prototypes in attempts to achieve a reliable, cost effective, ultra-high power output solid state transmitter (SSTx) that could compete with and replace Klystron and travelling wave tube (TWT) technologies. The solid state units sum up power by combining many Power Amplifier Unit (PAU) modules utilizing various conventional power combining schemes. These efforts have not reached a compatible, and thus not competitive, power output level to rival Klystrons. In addition, the complexity of the various high power solid state transmitter developments to date has further compromised their potential benefits in terms of life-cycle costs and overall reliability. Significantly, at the conclusion of Phase I Daico Industries showed that an extraordinarily reliable high power radar transmitter based on solid state technologies to be a feasible alternative to the legacy technology presently in wide spread usage within the USN and more widely DoD.

Benefit:
The Daico technology can be used to replace the current SPS-49 Radar Transmitter with a Solid-State, High Reliability Transmitter with significantly lower total cost of ownership.

Keywords:
transmitter, Hot Swap, solid state, Radar, Reliability, Automatic Failover, Maintainability, SPS-49