Whats the news on flat arrays?
I read about a commercial ferry testing somewhere in the UK a year or so ago.
With S band radar going when is the pleasure boat world going to get what the military has had for deades?
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Is a flat array radar the same thing as a phased array radar?
If so, these are radars that can see 180 degrees to the front horizontally and vertically and do so electronically via computer "steering". The array is made up of many seperate radar elements.
I would guess that cost and possibly mass are factors keeping them out of the recreational boating world.
It has been 35 years since I was involved with phased arrays and they are probably much smaller and lighter than before and may now be capable of revolving. Back in the early to mid seventies they were pretty massive and if very powerful required a large supply of cooling water for the elements.
Given the advances in electronic components and design in four decades you could probably now fit into a suitcase what we once required a huge multi-story concrete building with four large cooling towers to contain and operate.
Check this out...a cell-phone-size, $200 Doppler radar that can supposedly measure a car's speed at half mile range:
http://pocketradar.com/