Radar Sensor Concepts - LSI enjoys the challenge of applying state-of-the-art technology to advanced sensor system designs.  The company’s technical products cover the systems development cycle from the performance requirements definition, through system and subsystem specification, performance prediction, and hardware prototype.  The company’s activities have ranged from sensor technology studies, to realization of proof-of-concept demonstration systems.  One example spanning concept, system and subsystem performance prediction, as well as hardware development and integration is the wideband surveillance radar (WBSR) test bed.  The WBSR system features include custom developed wideband hardware and processing technologies, and operates from UHF through L-Band with a 1 GHz tunable bandwidth, dynamic waveform agility, an electronically scanned active array aperture, and an adaptive digital beamforming architecture.  The WBSR was trailer integrated for portability.  Another example covering concept, performance prediction, and projected system realization and costing dealt with next generation candidates for the Navy’s surface search operations.  One candidate shown here is a wideband X-Band active array architecture that was optimized to host extended dwell - high search rate processing algorithms for periscope and mast detection.  The concept was developed to improve currently fielded capabilities while maintaining affordability and adherence to realizable platform prime power and payload constraints.
 

Performance Prediction - LSI’s strong theoretical capabilities coupled with broad practical experience enables the company to create rigorous, physics-based analytical models that are both realistic, to allow  meticulous performance prediction, and flexible, for comparative evaluation of alternative concepts.  Using state-of-the-art scientific programming tools, LSI routinely provides customers with thorough system/subsystem analysis and most importantly, solutions to difficult design problems.  For example, the figure on the left represents a concept system's antenna beam co-registration characteristics from a moving platform after range delay correction.  The time line properties of the analysis reflect both the sensor platform’s motion characteristics, and the sampling and duration of the coherent processing interval (CPI) designed to optimize detection and false alarm performance.
 

A second example shown below illustrates the linear FM pulse compression loss that results from operating a large antenna array with a wideband waveform and phase only beamforming.  These examples illustrate the kind of detailed analysis results that LSI can provide to meet customer needs.