Japan to make GaN based AESA seeker for Meteor AAM

Japan's Mistry of Defense(MoD) requested ￥ 7.7 billion($ 70 million) from the 2018 defense budget to develop a compact sized high power RF seeker that will be fitted with European Meteor air to air missile.

According to the initial evaluation sheet issued by the MoD, they successfully concluded the technical suitability of the new Meteor air-to-air missile, which is capable of arming in the internal weapon bay of the F-35 fighter is feasible in collaboration with the UK. Japan is ready to move on to the next phase of building actual products and integrating the systems.

To improve the performance of this smaller seeker, it will use GaN modules. Thus, Japanese MoD claims that the new seeker will have a high-resolution that can even track down a low RCS target such as stealth fighter.

Japan wants to complete the development of this missile by Heisei 34(2022) and also plan to use this missile for its future indigenous fighter, F-3.





http://www.mod.go.jp/j/approach/hyouka/ ... honbun.pdf
http://www.mod.go.jp/j/approach/hyouka/ ... sankou.pdf

Not the freshest news (this was announced a few years ago and has been mentioned plenty of times on the forum), but neat graphics nonetheless. It puzzles me a little bit that they're going with a perpendicular array, though I suppose it aids in flexibility, plus for most of the missile's flight envelope it won't be facing the opponent dead-on. I wonder if we'll see this integrated with Block 4.4 with the UK's slimmed Meteor, or if Japan / others will have to wait until Block 5.