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Aerospace & Defense
Radar
High-performance FPGA SoCs for real-time radar signal capture, processing, beamforming, tracking.
Radar Processing at the Edge
Radar systems must handle rising data rates, adapt to shifting mission requirements, track targets in increasingly dynamic scenarios, and operate reliably in harsh conditions – demands that push conventional designs to their limits.
Agilex® 9 Direct RF FPGAs combine integrated data converters, high-performance fabric and DSP blocks, and high speed transceivers to tackle modern radar challenges in digital beamforming, pulse compression, channelization, and agile waveform synthesis on a single device, helping teams shrink radar front ends and transmit/receive modules into a single card.
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The Challenges, and Why FPGA
The Challenge
Rising Bandwidth & Data Rates
Modern radar must digitize and process waveforms with increasing bandwidths and complexity without compromising on system size or power.
Why FPGA
Direct RF Sampling
Agilex® 9 Direct RF integrates flexible data converters with programmable fabric reducing the overall system complexity and footprint.
The Challenge
Real-Time Multi-Target Tracking
Digital beamforming and simultaneous target tracking demands deterministic, low-latency, high throughput compute.
Why FPGA
Parallel, Deterministic Logic
FPGAs provide deterministic, low-latency, hardware-parallel processing for demanding modern radar search, track, and classify applications.
The Challenge
Harsh Environments & Long Life
Radar hardware must survive extreme conditions and stay in service for decades.
Why FPGA
Reconfigurable, Rugged Silicon
Altera offers resilient and ruggedized programmable logic solutions for long-lifecycle and environmentally demanding radar applications.
Why Altera
Direct RF Sampling
With sampling rates up to 64 GSPS, Agilex® 9 Direct RF simplifies the circuitry between antenna and the data converter.
Scalable Across the Portfolio
The Agilex portfolio shares common tools and IP, so designs scale from the edge to large array processing clusters.
Size, Weight, and Power Reduction
Customers have used Agilex® 9 Direct RF to shrink refrigerator-sized RF hardware into a single card.
Deployable Hardware Ecosystem
From SOSA-aligned 3U VPX cards to rugged system-on-modules, Altera’s partner solutions enable faster time to market.
Get Started
More Aerospace & Defense Applications
Electronic Warfare (EW)
Reconfigurable FPGA solutions for low-latency, deterministic, and wideband electronic support, protection, and attack modalities.
Secure Communication
Software-defined, SWaP-optimized FPGAs for secure, tamper-resistant military communications.
Avionics
Powering Safer, Smarter Avionics with DO-254-Capable FPGAs. Enabling high-performance cockpit displays, sensor fusion, and mission-critical computing.
Drones & Unmanned Systems
Scalable FPGAs from Group 1 to Group 5 unmanned systems and decoy platforms.
Precision-Guided Munitions
Scalable FPGAs from Group 1 to Group 5 unmanned systems and decoy platforms
Common Questions
Altera FPGAs provide deterministic, scalable, and high-throughput, parallel compute for modern radar signal processing applications. These capabilities address rising radar data rates and latency requirements while supporting hardware that can adapt as system needs evolve.
The Agilex® 9 Direct RF-Series combines high-speed ADCs and DACs with programmable FPGA fabric. This brings RF sensing and digital processing together in a compact platform for radar applications. Explore Direct RF sampling with Agilex® 9 FPGAs .
An integrated Direct RF architecture places data converters and programmable fabric in a single device rather than relying on a separate discrete converter stage. This approach supports compact system architectures and helps address size, weight, and power requirements.
DSP Builder, along with FPGA AI Suite and Platform Designer, provides software resources for radar platforms. These tools are supported by development hardware and reference materials for FPGA signal-processing evaluation. Explore DSP Builder for FPGA signal processing
Available radar resources include FPGA products, development hardware, software tools, and reference-design collateral. Common tools and IP support Agilex® 5, Agilex® 7, and Agilex® 9 devices, providing a starting point for reviewing device integration and platform evaluation materials. Explore FPGA radar design resources