Current Status of the High-Efficiency L-band Transmit/Receive Module Development for SAR Systems

Abstract

Large, lightweight, high power, L-band phased-arrays are required to enable future NASA synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions. The transmit/receive (T/R) module is a key component in SAR antennas and the T/R module efficiency has direct implications on the power dissipation and power generation requirements of the system. Significant improvements in the efficiency of the T/R module will make SAR missions more feasible and affordable. The efforts described in this paper are part of a three-year on-going task sponsored by the NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) under the Advanced Component Technology (ACT) program. We will describe the current status and recent results of a novel T/R module technology to achieve ultra-high efficiencies. The T/R module performance goal is to achieve an overall module efficiency greater than 70% with a minimum of 30-Watts output power at L-band frequencies.