You may ask "how can a radar company possibly design a communications system?" Well the answer is simple. All of our radar hardware expertise, including both RF and digital design, applies equally well to communications systems. Recently, there has been a growing trend towards the "software-defined-radio" where most of the communication system coding and decoding are implemented in VHDL firmware, rather than dedicated hardware. This has contributed to the blurring of the distinction between communications and radar systems at the hardware level. In fact, many large-aperture systems such as ground-based and space-based arrays are being designed to be "reconfigurable" so that they may serve both radar and communations functions.

Applied Radar is involved with the design and development of antenna systems and microwave transceivers for various communications system applications. Examples include a conformal satellite terminal for advanced fighter jets and business jets, a large high-data-rate (HDR) satellite antenna terminal, and a Ku-band wideband receiver for covert wideband communications. We have also developed concepts for wideband communications links for transmitting real-time UAV video data.