Unmanned aerial vehicle with deployable transmit/receive module apparatus with ramjet

A method for bistatic radar target detection comprising:

• launching an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) having a ramjet providing supersonic cruise of the UAV and navigating the UAV with a UAV flight profile in airspace beyond a radar range limit relative to the target with the ramjet engine at supersonic cruise to beyond the radar range limit;
• maintaining a mothership aircraft having a radar transmitter for transmitting radar pulses, said mothership aircraft operating with an aircraft flight profile outside the radar range limit;
• extending deployable antenna arms supporting a passive radar antenna having a plurality of receive (Rx) modules for bistatic reception of reflected radar pulses and having a first retracted position for supersonic cruise and adapted for deployment to a second extended position, said second extended position acting as an airbrake and providing boresight alignment of the Rx modules to the second position to act as air brakes reducing speed and providing boresight orientation of Tx/Rx modules for bistatic RF pulse reception;
• employing a radar transmitter on the mothership aircraft to transmit radar pulses;
• employing the receive (Rx) modules on the UAV as a bistatic receiver to receive reflected radar pulses from targets;
• and,
• transmitting target data from the UAV to the mothership aircraft via a communications data link operably interconnecting the UAV and the tactical mothership aircraft, said communications data link transmitting data produced by the bistatic reception of reflected radar pulses in the UAV passive radar antenna to the mothership aircraft.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) comprising:

• a ramjet providing supersonic cruise of the UAV, and
• deployable antenna arms supporting a passive radar antenna having a plurality of receiver (Rx) modules for bistatic reception of reflected radar pulses from a radar transmitter on a mothership aircraft, said mothership aircraft operating with a flight profile outside a radar range limit and said UAV operating with a UAV flight profile in airspace beyond the radar range limit, said deployable antenna arms having a first retracted position for supersonic cruise and adapted for deployment to a second extended position, said second extended position acting as an airbrake and providing boresight alignment of the Rx modules;
• and,
• a communications data link operably interconnecting the UAV and the mothership aircraft, said communications data link transmitting data produced by the bistatic reception of reflected radar pulses in the UAV radar antenna to the mothership aircraft.