Where is the link to the construction of a PESA array?
They’re not relevant to Eurofighter in any way though? The article is from 2024 and says:
Flat Panel Antennas (FPA) at Ka-band (27.5-30 GHz) are the forefront of future technology
If they are the forefront of future technology now they flat out did not exist 30+ years ago when the Eurofighter MAWS was designed and built.
You also posted this picture of an AESA TRM
That kind of proves the point that these arrays are not well suited to fitting into a wedge shaped housing. I’m not talking about how flat or narrows the PCB can be. The length is the issue.
which is from 2007
which is still atleast a decade too old
To be frank here, T/R module would not be there, but radiating elements, with phase shifters between them.
So the slightly smaller 2/4 element PS plates
In any case, it does not make it valid
Too young*
Seems all that time travel is getting to your head
yeah it is getting confusing
but you get the point
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Decade too new*
Yeah, it is surprisingly hard to find photos of PESA radar components. This is apparently an section from the N011M PESA radar. You can sea there is still a lot of stuff that has to go behind the antenna face, which would make fitting two of them back to back in a wedge shaped housing difficult.
Now granted a hypothetical array inside the MAWS would be more compact than N011M on account of being much less powerful. But it’s not like you just mount two PCBs back to back on a wedged shaped frame. Both PESA and AESA antennas have a whole load of stuff you need to fit behind the antenna face. Which is why something like this seems more likely to me:
I thought you were DevilO6? Who is Frank?
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Correct.
As we do not know the exact technology, so we dont know how much of stuff there coul be offset.
We know some of the space will be saved, as low noise amplifiers were moved out to a separate part (that needs to be close to the MAWs antenne)
So this would have saved some space.
Still, no fancy shapes could be fit inside.
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In defense of GJ04, the wedge shape is very interesting and I see where he is coming from. I just find weird that there’s such a steep wedge for a potentially flat system, which reduces drastically the available space for the TMR modules.
Do you know how this sensor is position on the airplane ? Without knowing much, I would have actually guessed that the sensors would be on one face of the plate, shaped this way for structural reasons, instead of saying that there are modules on both faces, or saying that they are flat like in your diagrams
They are located in the wing roots
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Oh I see, for some reason I thought those were in the back side of the plane. This make a lot more sense aerodynamically then
Yeah, maybe there are some modulations, power/cooling or something advanced, but the underlaying technical part like PCBs and ICs are even 80s tech. MC68000 still flies in HARMs today.
Anyway, if Russians had AESA TRMs applicable to the fighter’s radar array in 2007, why wouldn’t West had the same with PESA (which is even simpler tech than AESA)?
Yeah ok, 1) you’re not in scale (those are Xband TRMs) and 2) PESA doesn’t have TRMs. It has one PCB of emitting elements, one PCB of BFIC and finally power panel all stacked (you have a scheme in the link, take a look). It’s just that the “sandwich” was perhaps somewhat fatter back than, although not necessarily, but we’re still talking about 80s tech here. Maybe cooling is better today, so the panel can be a bit slimmer but that’s it.
No, they’re not.
Zhuk’s IOC is 2007 and EF’s IOC is 2005.
Also, you need to consider Western tech is after all a bit more advanced than Russian.
It’s really the only way to get a full coverage using ESA.
you are still missing the point
it is irrelevant whoever had someting in 2007 when the Arrays in the EF came atleast a decade before then
you still didnt explain how they were able to use tech from 2007 in the 90s for the EF
then please show us an image of the EF array if you are so sure of how it looks
Semi-related question, are the angles for the Harrier GR7/9 MAWS known? or are they default figures in-game?
IRL.
Think I read somewhere in the past day that the Typhoon MAWS is based upon the same MAWS found in the back of the GR7.
So I was wondering if we could argue changes to the Typhoon’s MAWS angles based upon the Harrier GR7 MAWS in the same way some reports were argued for the CAPTOR-M using Blue Vixen.
At the moment GR7 is +/- 45° but if that is wrong and has been reported but not fixed (not uncommon given its a harrier) then we could use the same source maybe the for Typhoon?
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Yes, but the worlds first Electrically Scanned Flat Panel Array (which is what your article is talking about) was produced in 2017, that is still over 20 years after the Eurofighter’s MAWS was designed and built. You can’t get around the fact that you are referring to an article about technology which flat out did not exist when the Eurofighter’s MAWS was designed.
I never said they didn’t. The CAESAR AESA radar for Eurofighter was being tested in 2007. I am just saying that the MAWS antenna is too small to fit two arrays in back to back (one looking up and one looking down)
Yes, but AMIDS - the MAWS used by Eurofighter - was designed in the early 1990s. This advert for example dates from 1993
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I shared a picture of a PESA radar section, sure you could make one that is smaller, but it is still very much more than three PCBs stacked on top of eachother:
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Have you ever considered that maybe the MAWS just doesn’t provide full coverage?
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