X and Ku-Band Small Form Factor Radio Design

Many aerospace and defense electronics systems in the satcom, radar, and EW/SIGINT fields have long required access to a portion, or all, of the X and Ku frequency bands. As these applications move to more portable platforms such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and handheld radios, it is critical to develop new small form factor, low power radio designs that operate in the X and Ku bands, while still maintaining very high levels of performance.

This article outlines a new high frequency IF architecture that drastically reduces the size, weight, power, and cost of both the receiver and transmitter without impacting the system specifications. The resulting platform is also more modular, flexible, and software defined than existing radio designs.