Typhon, first naval AESA radar?

[ricebunny]

After reading the JPL paper on the radar, I learned that the prototype radar employed 3700 travelling wave tube amplifiers. Judging from the diagrams in the paper, it looks as if each radiating element had a dedicated amplifier, just like in an AESA radar:


This sketch from the Russian Wikipedia illustrates how the full arrangement may have worked. Again, one power amplifier per radiator is visible, between the phase computer lens and the transmitter lens:


What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Firefinder]

The First AESA radar was made in Russia in the mid fifties, follow shortly by the US Army MFR AESA radar for the Senitial (or was it Safeguard) ABM system.

Then you had the RNs Type 984 radar that used four different beams to track stuff.

 

[TomS]

After reading the JPL paper on the radar, I learned that the prototype radar employed 3700 travelling wave tube amplifiers. Judging from the diagrams in the paper, it looks as if each radiating element had a dedicated amplifier, just like in an AESA radar:

It looks like it, but I believe the drawings oversimplify things a little. In the proposed systems, there were actually several times as many beamformer/emitter array elements as there were amplifiers, and the amps (which sat between the beamfomer and the emitter) were switched to different waveguides as needed. So it's not quite a true AESA, since the emitter elements were not 1:1 with the transmitters. But it's more complex than a true PESA, since it used more than a single TWT.

Edit: Links to a couple of explanations:

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/bendix-mcdonnell-general-dynamics-typhon-sam.7028/

AN/SPG-59

 

[marauder2048]

Typhon looks to be a multi-beam antenna rather than a planar phased array.
The MAR prototype was an AESA but PAR and MSR were PESAs.

 

[ricebunny]

An early setback to the radar happened when the Luneberg lens melted after being subjected to high power. The solution was to use the lens at low power only, and then amplify the power of each output port with high power amplifiers:

 

[Tzoli]

This might of help?

[PDF] TYPHON-A WEAPON SYSTEM AHEAD OF ITS TIME | Semantic Scholar

In the late 1950s, Typhon was conceived by APL as an integrated weapon system to defeat the air threats of the 1970s. It compris.ed (1) a single radar system for search, acquisition, tracking, and missile guidance with multiple beams and instantaneous beam switching, able to operate effectively...

www.semanticscholar.org

 

[TomS]

This might of help?

[PDF] TYPHON-A WEAPON SYSTEM AHEAD OF ITS TIME | Semantic Scholar

In the late 1950s, Typhon was conceived by APL as an integrated weapon system to defeat the air threats of the 1970s. It compris.ed (1) a single radar system for search, acquisition, tracking, and missile guidance with multiple beams and instantaneous beam switching, able to operate effectively...

www.semanticscholar.org

This is the exact same paper that ricebunny linked in the original post.

 

[Tzoli]

Do anybody know the size of this system? Eg dimensions? Both the radomes and the cylindrical structure supporting them?

 

[stealthflanker]

Being an AESA also requires each radiators to have its own LNA (Low Noise Amplifier) As receiving part, something which Typhoon apparently lacked.