Our Military Applications
Medium power class radar systems have been the standard in air defense systems for more than 30 years. Radar systems in this class have an average power rating of 125 kW and rely on vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes tend to be physically large, one of several factors that contribute to their increasing obsolescence.
Stangenes Industries, Inc. has deployed a reliable and accessible replacement in the form of solid-state modulators. They are a modern replacement for the legacy radar systems that make up the backbone of air defense systems throughout NATO countries and Europe. Sites that have received our upgraded modulator system have experienced increased reliability and integrity of operations.
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Military Industry
Solid State Modulator Radar Systems for Military Applications
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The solid-state modulator system consists of four primary components: the power rack, modulator cabinet, modulator control unit cabinet, and klystron tank. The power rack houses four independent power supplies. The power supplies rely on 50 kW/3 kV power to provide parallel operation and deliver redundancy to the power train. Implementing advanced control methods assists the charging power supplies in regulating the broad variations in the output duty cycle. The combination delivers replicable performance from the pulse-to-pulse radar’s beam.
Advantages of Stangene’s MARX SOLID-STATE SYSTEM Over Legacy Systems
A legacy vacuum-tube modulator system can contain 354 liters of oil to insulate the pulse transformer. It also has a transmitter tube socket containing 124 liters and 660 liters of oil to insulate the 48 kV DC power supply.
The pulse transmitter tube socket allows for oil changes in the field, but the oil in the power supply and pulse transformer is not field-serviceable. Users must ship the non-serviceable components to a qualified repair facility for oil replacement and processing. The Marx solid-state system only relies on a transmitter tube socket with a field-serviceable 124-liter oil tank. It eliminates the need for shipping components offsite for repair.
Legacy modulator systems have several components with a single point of failure. The lack of redundancy can knock the entire system offline when a single component fails, compromising critical missions and resulting in downtime until personnel can service the system. The Marx solid-state modulator is field-replaceable. It maintains redundancy to allow critical operations to continue after a failure. The system will continue to operate, allowing the operator to schedule repairs or maintenance at an appropriate time.
The Marx solid-state modulator has a standby voltage of 3,000 V DC, making it less risky to maintain and safer overall when compared to the legacy system’s 48,000 V DC. The legacy system’s higher voltage stresses the vacuum tube’s air insulation requiring frequent maintenance to clean the insulators.
We designed the Marx solid-state modulator with optimal field serviceability in mind. The unit is small, modular, and field-replaceable. The solid-state modulator reduces system repair durations and stocking requirements in the field. Its redundant components allow for a graceful degradation period to facilitate planned maintenance operations following a component failure. Our Marx solid-state modulators implement advances in performance improvements, maintainability, and reliability to provide a steep advantage over legacy systems.
Military Applications
The Marx solid-state modulator offers performance in a variety of military applications. The applications include:
- Mobile Power Systems
- Mobile Units
- Radar Modulators
- Air Defense
Military Solutions From Stangenes
Decades-old defense radar system modulators are readily upgradable with reliable and redundant Marx solid-state modulators from Stangenes Industries, Inc. Among the many advantages of solid-state modulators are graceful degradation, multiple points of power redundancy, and ease of maintenance to keep equipment running during mission-critical operations. A variety of military applications rely on solid-state modulators.
Graceful degradation helps the device deliver considerable operational availability and reliability compared to legacy systems. Solid-state modulators offer power supply and modulator switch redundancy to reduce maintenance and provide greater system longevity. They also have a significantly lower number of transmitter parts for easy troubleshooting and minimal requirements for alignment procedures to maintain transmitter stability.
Solid-state modulators from Stangenes Industries are an ideal solution for replacing legacy power systems. They offer a comparable mission-critical response and operational availability to costly active-phase array systems. Contact us to learn more about our products and capabilities today.