Radar technology specialist Echodyne has unveiled its EchoShield platform, the company’s most recent product development providing a wide array of mission capabilities for potential commercial, defense, and government clients.
Echodyne introduced the longer-range, 4D EchoShield radar as a next-generation supplement to its metamaterials electronically scanned array (MESA) systems. Those are operational in counter-UAS, border and base security, force protection, critical infrastructure security, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, UAV detect and avoid applications. The company described EchoShield as an advanced software-defined, new price-performance standard for radars, developed in close consultation with customers.
Reflecting what Echodyne heard the market asking for, the initial software release of EchoShield will prioritize counter-UAS missions, and detecting, tracking, and classifying uncrewed aircraft – including even low, slow, and small drones in dense urban environments. Future configurations will adapt the radar’s capacities with client demands across multiple applications and market segments.
Tech-wonky readers will want EchoShield’s impressive specs straight from Echodyne itself.
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.
Kirkland, Washington-based Echodyne says the unit’s onboard processing capabilities and ingestion of data-rich range-doppler spectrograms into offboard computing systems allows EchoShield’s software development kit to perform deep integration and multi-sensor fusion. The platform, which is still awaiting Federal Communications Commission authorization for marketing, continues to be prepared for client use as soon as approval is obtained.
“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 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 is designed to operate in the Ku band, with radiolocation service at 15.7-16.6 GHz and radionavigation at 15.4-15.7 GHz. Its features include fully customizable 130° azimuth x 90° elevation field of regard; 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; and cognitive search capabilities integrate onboard or offboard data.
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