Integration of Airborne Early Warning Radar Platforms on Aircraft

Conference contribution, 2020

The need for a long-range and complete Air Picture has long since motivated the presence of airborne early warning (AEW) radar platforms. Later developments, such as stealth and advancing threats at low altitudes or hypersonic speeds have nothing but reinforce the need for increased-performance AEW. However, the high costs for the platform, integration, and operations restrict the number of platforms to a point where these high-value assets become sensitive to preemptive actions by an adversary. Therefore, SAAB has within the NFFP7 framework launched a series of studies aiming at smaller, adapted, and cost-efficient unmanned AEW platforms with extreme endurance. Thus, the aerodynamic performance of the carrier plus radar must be optimized, which implies that the projected area of the radar must be minimized. In this project, we study the possibility of integrating the antenna layer in the fuselage structure of the aircraft, thus gaining (i) body width and (ii) a more optimal wet geometry.