RF & Microwave Electronics

Software-Defined Radio

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Articles
Unmanned Systems

Reverse Engineering the Security Risks of the AeroScope Drone Detection Module

Da Jiang Innovations' AeroScope drone detection platform has proven to be an effective security tool for military and law enforcement. It identifies and tracks drones in real time, providing AeroScope users with information like flight status, path and pilot location for drones up to 50 kilometers away. Read on to learn more about it.

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Products
Sensors/Data Acquisition

New Products

See the new products, including L3Harris Technologies' AMORPHOUS™, its new software that features a single user interface to operate thousands of autonomous assets simultaneously; Rohde & Schwarz's new R&S NRP140TWG(N) thermal power sensor; SBG Systems' expansion of its high-performance inertial navigation systems, Ekinox, Apogee, and Navsight, with new GNSS receiver options; Supermicro, Inc.'s wide range of new systems which are fully optimized for edge and embedded workloads; and much more.

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Briefs
RF & Microwave Electronics

Engineers Enable a Drone to Determine Its Position in the Dark and Indoors

MIT researchers have introduced a new approach that enables a drone to self-localize, or determine its position, in indoor, dark, and low-visibility environments. Self-localization is a key step in autonomous navigation. Read on to learn more about it.

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Briefs
Aerospace

Low Cost Air Traffic Control for Drones

Using a network of small, low-cost radars, engineering professor Cammy Peterson and her colleagues have built an air traffic control system for drones that can effectively and accurately track anything in an identified low-altitude airspace. Read on to learn more about it.

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Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability Makes Tremendous Progress in First Year

Just one year after signing a ground-breaking trilateral agreement, the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability partnership is completing facilities construction at the first of three sites that will host a global network of advanced ground-based sensors. Read on to learn more.

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Briefs
Aerospace

A Swarm of Sensors, Rovers and Astronauts Explore the ‘Moon’

Researchers at the German Aerospace Center have developed a new approach to networked communications that could theoretically occur on the Moon or in environments on Earth where conventional communications are unavailable. Read on to learn more.

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INSIDER
RF & Microwave Electronics

Navy's Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band System Achieves IOC

The U.S. Navy declared initial operational capability (IOC) for the Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) system in December, bringing a quantum leap in capability over legacy...

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INSIDER
Electronics & Computers

First F-15Es Equipped With EPAWSS Ready for Flight

Two F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft equipped with the Eagle Passive/Active Warning and Survivability System (EPAWSS) arrived at RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom, Jan. 16, 2025, marking the...

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Products
Electronics & Computers

New Products

See the new products, including EIZO Rugged Solutions' Condor™ GR5S-AD5000 – a 3U OpenVPX form factor video graphics and GPU output card; Sandvik Coromant's GC1230, a new grade for indexable milling; Teledyne FLIR's ITAR-free Vue® TV128+ camera module; WAGO’s updated 750-1632 Proportional Valve Module; and much more.

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Application Briefs
RF & Microwave Electronics

Australian Air Surveillance Radar Upgrade

Sensor solutions provider Hensoldt has signed a contract with Space Centre Australia to deliver two high-performance Air Surveillance Radar - Next Generation systems (ASR-NG), along with a 20-year sustainment plan to bolster Australia’s critical air surveillance capabilities. Read on to learn more.

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Application Briefs
Defense

Army Completes Satellite as a Managed Service Research Project

Intelsat has provided the U.S Army with new, flexible, and fully managed multi-orbit satellite communications (SATCOM) support, following the completion of the Army’s first-ever multi-vendor SATCOM as a Managed Service (SATaaMS) Pilot contract. Read on to learn more about it.

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Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

Researchers Use Ancient Japanese Art Method to Create Tunable Antennas

Researchers at Drexel University and the University of British Columbia believe kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of cutting and folding paper to create intricate three-dimensional designs, could provide a model for manufacturing the next generation of antennas. Read on to learn why.

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Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

What is Drone Jamming and How Can it Be Countered?

Deliberate RF jamming of drones has become one of the most common battlefield tactics in Ukraine. But what is jamming, how does it work and how can it be countered by unmanned aerial vehicles in the field? Read on to find out.

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Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

Beyond the Beam: The Impact of Coaxial Cables on Phased Array Technology

Phased array radar technology has been gaining popularity since its initial introduction in the 1960s and is now being used in a variety of applications, from military and defense to civilian sectors and even space exploration. Read on to learn more about this cutting-edge technology.

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Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

Cutting-Edge Drone Killer Radio Wave Weapon Developing at Pace

Delivered by Team Hersa, the Radio Frequency Directed Energy Weapon can detect, track and engage a range of threats across land, air and sea. The system uses radio waves to disrupt or damage critical electronic components inside enemy platforms, such as drones, causing them to stop in their tracks or fall out of the sky. Read on to learn more.

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RF & Microwave Electronics

EA-37B Compass Call: The US Air Force's New Electronic Attack Aircraft

The U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command received its first EA-37B Compass Call on Aug. 23 for pilot training at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.

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Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

Quality Gearing Keeps Mission-Critical Systems Rotating for Combat

Power transmission and gear components must meet extreme performance and reliability demands in order to prove effective on the battlefield. That’s because they are the heart of rotating mechanisms used to rapidly detect threats, home in on targets, and fire projectiles quickly aboard combat vehicles and ships. Read on to learn more about the gear and its uses.

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Articles
Photonics/Optics

This Laser Clock Could Transform Satellite Navigation Accuracy

A new laser clock from the German Aerospace Center has achieved a record level of accuracy for optical clocks with gas cells: in 30 million years, it would be off by just one second. Read on to learn more about it and what it could mean for satellite navigation accuracy.

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Articles
Communications

Everyday Life, Improved by Light: GRYPHON’s Photonic Discoveries

GRYPHON will leverage recent developments in nonlinear photonics and photonic-electronic integration to develop microwave sources with noise performance that meets or exceeds that of the best discrete oscillator modules. Read on to learn more about the endeavor.

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Articles
Electronics & Computers

Space Lasers: Aiming Towards Next Leap in Global Communications

Space lasers are transforming the world. Not the far-off future of science fiction, but the universe of how data and communications flow today — everywhere from deep space missions to countless applications here on earth, including consumer internet services, military operations, and banking transactions. Read on to learn more.

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Articles
Communications

To 6G and Beyond: Penn Engineers Unlock the Next Generation of Wireless Communications

In the early 2010s, LightSquared, a startup promising to revolutionize cellular communications, declared bankruptcy. The company couldn’t figure out how to prevent its signals from interfering with those of GPS systems. Now, Penn Engineers have developed a new tool that could prevent such problems from ever happening again: an adjustable filter that can successfully prevent interference, even in higher-frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.

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Application Briefs
Aerospace

Persistent German Airborne Surveillance System

Hensoldt, Lufthansa Technik Defense, and Bombardier Defense provided a significant program update on the highly-specialized modification work on the Persistent German Airborne Surveillance System (PEGASUS) aircraft at the 2024 Berlin Air Show. Read on to learn more.

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Design

How Sandia’s New Digital Engineering Tool Helps Reimagine Design of Radar Systems

In a whirling geopolitical landscape of new nuclear weapons, hypersonic weapons, drones and satellites, the U.S. is hustling to test new kinds of radars...

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Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

NASA’s Optical Communications Demo Transmits Data Over 140 Million Miles

This achievement provides a glimpse into how spacecraft could use optical communications in the future, enabling higher-data-rate communications of complex scientific information as well as high-definition imagery and video in support of humanity’s next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.

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Aerospace

UK Flight Test Evaluates "Un-Jammable" Quantum Navigation Systems

In a first-of-its-kind achievement, the U.K. has successfully completed commercial flight trials of advanced quantum-based navigation systems that cannot be jammed or spoofed...

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INSIDER
RF & Microwave Electronics

Army Begins Satcom as a Service Evaluation

The U.S. Army has started fielding commercial satellite communications equipment, bandwidth and services to several units around the globe, under a new pilot that will inform leadership on a...

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Products
RF & Microwave Electronics

New Products

See the new products, including Mercury Systems' Direct RF system-on-module, TT Electronics' LRMAH2512 surface-mount technology shunt resistors, General Micro Systems' 1U and 2U “Shorty 4” servers, Sigma-Netics' thin-walled metal tubes, and much more.

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Articles
Electronics & Computers

Revolutionizing Electronic Warfare: Unleashing the Power of High-Performance Software-Defined Radios

In the ever-evolving landscape of electronic warfare (EW), the imperative for technological prowess has never been more pronounced. At the vanguard of this evolution stands a technological marvel — high-performance software defined radios (SDRs).

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Articles
Electronics & Computers

Design Approaches for Established and Emerging RF Receiver Architectures

Traditionally, heterodyne architectures have been the preferred choice for radio frequency (RF) and millimeter-wave (mmWave) receiver architectures, excelling in noise performance, dynamic range, frequency coverage, selectivity, and reduction of EMI. However, recent advancements in high sample rate analog to digital converters (ADCs) and embedded signal processing have prompted a reassessment of both architectures.

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