This technology will provide 360-degrees of coverage and will be able to located simultaneous and diverse threats whether they are drones and aircrafts or ballistic and cruise missiles. The US Armed Forces and the 22 other nations that currently field Patriot air defence systems, as well as potential buyers, such as Poland, will benefit from the new technology. Further to its new capabilities, the GaN AESA radar has 50% less maintenance costs.

The Raytheon-built GaN-based AESA Patriot uses three antenna arrays mounted on a mobile radar shelter to provide 360-degrees of radar coverage. The main AESA array is a bolt-on replacement antenna for the current Gallium Arsenide based antenna. The GaN-based AESA array measures roughly 9' wide x 13' tall, and is oriented toward the primary threat. Patriot's new rear panel arrays are a quarter the size of the main array and let the system look behind and to the sides of the main array, enabling Patriot to engage threats in all directions.

Earlier this year, Raytheon built a GaN-based AESA Patriot rear-panel array, integrated it with the current Patriot radar using the existing, recently modernized, back-end processing hardware and software, and tracked targets of opportunity to seamlessly create a 360-degree view.

The recently accomplished milestones include:

• Completing construction of the AESA main array structure.
• Constructing the AESA arrays' radar shelter.
• Integrating receivers and a radar digital processor into the radar shelter.
• Delivering the shelter to Raytheon's test facility in Pelham, N.H.
• Testing the radar's cooling sub-system.