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EADS Defense & Security Systems will provide the tri-national Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) with advanced electronics components that they say makes the system's fire control radar the most powerful radar worldwide.

MEADS is a joint program of Germany, Italy and the United States aiming at the development of a mobile air defense system countering new threats and replacing older equipment. The 3.5 billion-dollar design and development phase was launched in 2005 and is intended to produce four, fire-control radar prototypes by 2012 to 2014.

Under a contract worth approximately 120 million Euros, EADS Defense Electronics (DE) will develop and produce more than 40,000 transmit/receive (T/R) modules and related work packages to be delivered during the design and development phase up through 2009.

These modules are crucial elements for next-generation radars using active electronically scanning array (AESA) technology. Instead of mechanical movement of the antenna, AESA radars employ electronic steering realized by thousands of T/R modules, basically small radars themselves, which enable unprecedented performance and versatility.

EADS operates a dedicated RF chip production foundry and has built up an automated cleanroom production facility at its Ulm site -- the so-called MicroWaveFactory -- that makes it a major partner in the most important AESA programs. EADS DE is participating in the fighter radar CAESAR, the space program TerraSAR, the NATO surveillance radar TCAR and the German ground surveillance program BUR. EADS is using the SMTR standard T/R module for all applications operating in the X band that have to undergo only limited modification for the respective application.