Advanced software-defined radar for security, defense, and autonomy applications
12 Oct 21. Echodyne, the radar platform company, announced today the newest addition to its market-leading portfolio of radars – EchoShield. Designed from the ground-up to set a new price-performance standard for mid-range radars, EchoShield is an advanced software-defined multi-mission radar for a wide variety of commercial, defense, and government use cases.
EchoShield’s development has been informed by hundreds of customers and applications across multiple industries. The radar’s architecture builds upon the field-proven success of Echodyne’s proprietary metamaterials electronically scanned array (MESA®) radars that are in use across a wide range of applications, such as counter-UAS, border and base security, force protection, critical infrastructure security, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, UAV detect and avoid, and autonomous ground vehicles.
A pulse-Doppler cognitive 4D radar, EchoShield combines ultra-precise electronically scanned array (ESA) beamforming and real-time dynamic waveform synthesis to deliver sub-degree tracking accuracy on hundreds of objects across a broad 3D field of view. EchoShield’s cognitive search capabilities integrate onboard or offboard data stores to adapt and direct radar resources when and where required in order to deliver the right data and detail at the right time. Whether using the radar’s significant onboard processing capabilities or ingesting data-rich range-doppler spectrograms into offboard compute, EchoShield’s SDK enables deep integration and multi-sensor fusion.
EchoShield is designed to be software-optimized to mission profiles that align powerful dynamic radar resources with unique customer requirements to deliver superior radar performance. Based on market demand, the initial software release prioritizes a counter-UAS mission and excels at detecting, tracking, and classifying any uncrewed aircraft, including low slow and small drones even in dense urban environments. Further releases will match radar resources with customer demand in dozens of applications and markets.
“Radar is a fundamental sensor for a wide range of commercial and government applications, but achieving high performance at reasonable cost, size, weight and power (C-SwaP) has always been a challenge,” said Eben Frankenberg, CEO of Echodyne. “Our customers have challenged us with certain radar performance attributes and EchoShield has been designed to meet these demanding requirements. Our customers are lining up for first units and already discussing production volume, so we’re very pleased with the market reception.”
EchoShield operates in the Ku band, with RadioLocation service at 15.7-16.6 GHz and RadioNavigation at 15.4-15.7 GHz, and is commercially exportable to many countries under US EAR regulations. Its features include:
- 130° azimuth x 90° elevation field of regard (fully customizable)
- 0.5° tracking accuracy in azimuth and elevation, with very low track splitting/dropping
- Powerful UAV classification with low false-alarms and near-zero false-negatives
- Cognitive search capabilities integrate onboard or offboard data
Average tracking ranges for counter-UAS mission:
○ Group 1 (-20 to -10 dBsm): 2.7 to 4.8 km
○ Group 2 (-10 to -5 dBsm): 4.8 to 6.4 km
○ Group 3 (-5 to 5 dBsm): 6.4 to 11.4 km
“Our breakthrough Metamaterial-ESA technology unlocks a level of beamforming previously only available with large ultra-expensive AESA’s with hundreds of channels,” said Tom Driscoll, CTO of Echodyne. “EchoShield combines this precise beamforming with modern fully-adaptive cognitive-radar approaches and intelligent control software, and the result is a radar with best-in-class detection, tracking, and classification performance.”
For additional details and technical specifications, please visit our website at echodyne.com.
About Echodyne
Echodyne, the radar platform company, designs and delivers high-performance compact, solid-state, patent-protected MESA® radars. Ideally suited for defense, security, machine perception, and autonomy, Echodyne’s commercially priced electronically scanned array radars are used by defense and government agencies, autonomous developers, and security integrators for counter-UAS, borders and perimeter security, critical infrastructure protection, unmanned aerial vehicles, and autonomous vehicles. Privately held, the company is based in
Kirkland, Washington, and is backed by Bill Gates, NEA, Madrona Venture Group, Vulcan Capital, Vanedge Capital, and Lux Capital among others. For more information, please visit: Echodyne.com.