Active phased array radar and passive phased radar.

Which is more powerful, active phased array radar or passive phased array radar?

Of course, active phased array radar is much stronger and tends to replace passive phased array radar, but its manufacturing cost is much higher than that of passive phased array radar.

The power of each small antenna element of a passive phased array is distributed by a high-power centralized transmitter, and the antenna element itself cannot emit electromagnetic waves, so it is called passive. Each unit of the active phased array can independently transmit electromagnetic waves and receive them. Each unit is equivalent to a small radar, equivalent to the compound eye of an insect. The electromagnetic wave reception of passive phased array radar is uniform.

Active phased array radar is more advanced than passive phased array radar. First of all, from the perspective of reliability, the power of radar transmitter is generally very large, and it must work at a high voltage above tens of thousands of volts, which is very easy to discharge and strike a fire. Although the passive phased array solves the problem of mechanically rotating the antenna, it makes the beam rotation more flexible without the huge mechanical inertia of customer service. However, there is still nothing to be done about the reliability of high-power centralized transmitter.

The reliability of active phased array is greatly improved, because the centralized transmitter is divided into several parts, and each transceiver module works at low voltage and is an integrated circuit.

Moreover, because the output power of active phased array radar is the synthesis of the output power of each transceiver module, if a certain power is to be achieved, the number of transceiver modules is very large, for example, more than 1000. Even if so many transceiver components are damaged, the total loss of output power is not great, and the radar can still work almost normally, so the reliability is further increased.

In addition, active phased array has another advantage, that is, the loss of active phased array in the process of energy transfer is very small. This is mainly because the radar transceiver module is located directly behind the antenna unit, and the path from the transmitter to the antenna unit to form electromagnetic waves is very short, so the transmission loss is very small.

For passive phased array radar, including traditional mechanical scanning radar and passive phased array radar, the distance between transmitter and antenna unit is much larger than that of active phased array radar. Generally speaking, the energy loss of active phased array is 3 to 4 times less than that of passive phased array.