Radar Systems Engineer – Phased Array & Beamforming Architecture

Job Summary

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) seeks a Radar Systems Engineer – Phased Array & Beamforming Architecture to contribute to the design and architecture of advanced radar systems. Reporting to the Senior Manager of Architecture and Systems Engineering, this role collaborates with various subsystem leads to define and realize the overall radar system design.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead the architecture and system-level design of phased array and digital beamforming for advanced radar systems, including array partitioning, beamforming topologies, and multibeam concepts.
• Collaborate with hardware engineering to ensure the phased array and DBF design is consistent with the array and RF front-end architectures, including element patterns, polarization behavior, and scan angle effects.
• Develop beam tapering strategies and beam weight designs to meet coverage, sidelobe, clutter, interference, and electronic protection performance requirements.
• Develop performance models and simulations of beamformed channels (primarily in MATLAB) to assess SNR, beam patterns, sidelobe levels, and sensitivity under realistic scenarios, including hardware non-idealities.
• Work closely with the calibration team to define calibration requirements and strategies that support desired beamforming performance, analyze the impact of gain/phase errors, array imperfections, mutual coupling, and calibration residuals on beam patterns and system performance, and develop methods to compensate for or mitigate these factors in the beamforming algorithms and architecture.
• Collaborate with hardware, RF, and the Digital Receiver/Exciter (DREX) team to ensure the DBF design is consistent with DREX architectures, data paths, and interfaces, quantization, dynamic range, and timing requirements, data throughput and processing resource constraints for current and future systems, and define DBF data paths and implementation approaches on high-performance processing architectures, in collaboration with hardware and software teams.
• Support integration and test planning for phased array and DBF functions, including lab, HWIL (hardware-in-the-loop), and field test events.
• Define and decompose system and subsystem requirements related to phased array, DBF, and beam control, including interfaces to RF front-end, DSP, tracking, and radar resource management.
• Analyze data from simulations, near-field and far-field range measurements, and field tests to validate phased array and beamforming designs, troubleshoot issues, and develop design updates.
• Develop and maintain phased array and DBF-related models and documentation to support design reviews and system-level trades.
• Prepare and present technical material at internal and external technical reviews (SRR, PDR, CDR, TRR, etc.) and customer meetings.

Job Qualifications

• Typically requires a bachelor's degree, master's degree, or PhD in engineering or a related technical discipline from an accredited institution and progressive engineering experience as follows: fifteen or more years of experience with a bachelor's degree, thirteen or more years of experience with a master's degree, or ten or more years with a PhD.
• May substitute equivalent engineering experience in lieu of education.
• Demonstrated detailed and extensive technical expertise and application of systems engineering and radar engineering principles, with the ability to organize, plan, schedule, conduct, and coordinate workloads to meet established deadlines or milestones, including some experience in project or technical leadership.
• Demonstrated experience in radar systems with emphasis in one or more of the following areas: Digital beamforming architectures for phased array or AESA radar systems, Beamforming weight/taper design and sidelobe control, Multibeam or adaptive beamforming concepts, Performance modeling of beamformed channels, Electronic protection techniques related to beamforming and spatial processing, Experience developing and analyzing radar system models and simulations using MATLAB, Experience with additional tools such as Python or C/C++, Experience with calibration and hardware teams, including understanding of array and RF hardware non-idealities (gain/phase errors, mutual coupling, channel imbalance, etc.), Experience with calibration techniques and their impact on beamforming performance, Experience with digital beamforming implementation on FPGA, GPU, or other high-performance processing architectures (in collaboration with hardware, firmware, and software teams), Experience with FPGA or firmware development and prototyping is a plus, Familiarity with key radar subsystems and functions, such as: RF front-end and antenna/array architectures, Waveform design and pulse compression, Digital signal processing and detection, Tracking and track-while-scan architectures, Radar resource management and scheduling, Calibration and performance verification, Ability to understand new concepts quickly and apply them accurately throughout a fast-paced, R&D environment, Strong communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills to effectively interface with other departments, customers, government representatives, and/or professionals, Customer focused and able to work on a self-initiated basis or in a team environment, Ability to obtain and maintain a DoD security clearance is required, Previous experience working with the Department of Defense.

Even Better If You Have

• Demonstrated experience as a beamforming architect or lead engineer on digital beamforming radar systems (airborne, ground based, naval, or space based).
• Experience with calibration techniques for large arrays and understanding of how calibration data is used within beamforming algorithms.
• Experience developing or using IQ based and/or detection-based system level simulations to validate DBF and search performance.
• Experience with development tools including Confluence, Jira, and Git.