Sense and avoid airborne radar implementations on a low-cost weather radar platform

Traditionally, multi-mission applications in airborne radar are implemented through very expensive phased array architectures. The emerging applications from civilian surveillance, on the other hand, prefer low-cost and low-SWaP (space, weight and power) systems. This study introduces a software-based solution that intends to use low-cost hardware and advanced algorithms/processing backend to meet the remote sensing goals for multi-mission applications. The low-cost airborne radar platform from Garmin International is used as a representative example of the system platform. The focus of this study is the optimal operating mode, data quality and algorithm development in cases of all-weather sense and avoid (SAA) applications. The main challenges for the solution are the resolution limitation due to the small aperture size, limitations from the field-of-view (FOV) and the scan speed from mechanical scanning. We show that the basic operational needs can be satisfied with software processing through various algorithms. The concept and progress of polarimetric airborne radar for dual-function operations at X-band Generation 1 (PARADOX1) based on the platform are also discussed.