Kris Osborne
The PATRIOT Missile Segment Enhancement improves fire-control, radar and target tracking for the weapon, which can destroy enemy drones, aircraft and Theater Ballistic Missiles.
The US Army and key allies around the world are now analyzing a radar and targeting upgrade to the Patriot missile able to increase the range of threats it can destroy -- to include a wider range of drones, rotary wing aircraft, cruise missiles, extended range tactical ballistic missiles and high-speed aircraft.
The Raytheon prototype upgrade includes the addition of new technology designed to keep pace with fast-emerging threats well above and beyond the tactical ballistic missiles for which the weapon was initially designed.
"The range of the threats has grown well beyond tactical ballistic missiles that everybody was focused on," Joe DeAntona, Vice President for Business Development and Strategy, Raytheon Integrated Air and Missile Defense, told Scout Warrior in an interview.
This prototype of Raytheon’s proposed new Patriot radar uses two key technologies – active electronically scanned array, which changes the way the radar searches the sky; and gallium nitride circuitry, which uses energy efficiently to amplify the radar’s high-power radio frequencies, a Raytheon statement said.
The so-called "AESA GaN" radar enables a 360-degree capability and is more powerful, more efficient and cheaper to run and maintain, Raytheon developers added.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-army-upgrades-patriot-missile-kill-multiple-threats-19308
