Introduction to Active Electronically Scanned Arrays (AESAs)

This lecture provides a history of AESA development going back to the 1960s. Differences between mechanically scanned arrays (MSAs), passive electronic scanned arrays (PESAs) and AESAs are discussed and elaborated upon in addition to the progressive advancement of AESAs. Also included is a summary of the benefits that AESAs provide for different applications. These applications include Radar, Electronic Warfare (EA/ESM), SIGINT and COMMS. Finally, using the radar range equation, the impacts of array elements, transmit receive modules (TRMs), and beamformers on system performance is detailed.