Even comparing the ALR-94 to a system like "Spectra" is an insult.  Spectra is a decent system, but is noteworthy far more for its marketing than its performance.   Giving a good but unexceptional EW system the name "Specta" and printing off endless brochures with its exposed components highlighted may well have been the smartest decision during the Rafale's entire design process.  The problem is there are few people in the public who have a good working knowledge of these types of systems. They read a brochure and hear the sexy name, and conclude from that that the system must be a world leading system, it simply isn't. (More on that later)

 

 

NASHUA, NH -- (March 31, 1999) - Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company, has completed production and delivery of the first of eleven Electronic Warfare suites being produced for the U.S. Air Force's new F-22 Raptor air dominance fighter under the EW Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase of the program.

The AN/ALR-94 EW system, and related test equipment, was shipped from Sanders in Nashua, N.H., to the F-22 Avionics Integration Laboratory (AIL) in Seattle, Wash., on Feb. 15. The shipment included advanced apertures and associated electronics, a Remote Aperture Interface Unit (RAIU) and RF unit, as well as aircraft power supplies, test stands and work stations.

Don Donovan, Sanders' vice-president for F-22 programs, said that the hardware was successfully brought on-line at the AIL within a week after delivery, and "performance of the F-22 EW system has substantially exceeded the AIL team's expectations," Donovan said.

Donovan paid tribute to the combined Sanders and Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems (LMTAS) team who produced, tested and integrated more than 50 hardware items to meet the delivery deadline as "a huge accomplishment and impressive mission success."

Tom Burbage, Lockheed Martin Aeronautical Systems' F-22 Program vice president, described the Sanders-built F-22 EW suite as "the most technically complex piece of equipment on the most sophisticated aircraft ever conceived."

This on-time delivery of the Raptor's EW suite culminates more than a decade of research and development by Sanders and its suppliers. While initial setup and checkout of the system was expected to take about three weeks at the AIL facility, on-site engineers actually accomplished that task in less than a week.

The F-22 EW capability is a critical element of the aircraft's advanced sensor suite which will enable Raptor pilots to achieve air dominance over any potential adversary well into the 21st century. In addition to the electronic countermeasures suite, Sanders is providing the fighter's airborne videotape recorders, Communication, Navigation and Identification (CNI) antennas, graphic processor video interface, operational debrief system, common automated test system, and mission support equipment. Value of these Sanders products to the expected Raptor production program could exceed $2 billion through the year 2013.

Sanders is an operating company of the Lockheed Martin Electronics Sector, a leader in the design, development and manufacture of electronic systems for global defense, civil and commercial markets. In addition to aircraft self-protection systems, Sanders is a major producer of tactical surveillance and intelligence systems for all branches of the armed forces. Other major business areas include microwave, mission and space electronics; automated mission planning systems; and commercial telecommunications systems. 

This original system, although incredibly capable, was a product of early 90s technology which imposed certain limitations(many of which are detailed below when I talk about Spectra), but the ALR-94 has since been extensively upgraded.  You are sitting here talking about the relative upgrade potential of the two systems, when in the F-22's case the upgrade has already taken place, at least in the newer airframes.

 

 

 

You are lost in the woods on this one...  processing is done at multiple levels in multiple systems.  You are talking about the central computers on the aircraft, while the issue is the processing that occurs within the EW system itself.  When a signal is received by an antenna, it is analog.(Radar pulses are "digital" in a sense, but once you get out into the "real" world everything gets distorted.  There is the signal the radar is trying to produce, the signal the radar actually produces, which will inevitably be distorted by its transmit hardware to some extent,  the signal as it arrives on the target, which will have undergone further distortion in the atmosphere, and the signal as it returns to the original aircraft, which will be even more mangled as it will not strike all surfaces of the target simultaneously, the return signal will actually consist of a series of closely spaced spikes of various sizes... etc ) Add to this, background noise, multi-path returns, and other radars... and what you get is a complex and very analog soup. Totally unprocessed, the amount of data we are talking about is simply massive.  All EW suites reduce this to a managable level through various algorithms.  How, and to what extent this information is cut down depends on the system and its available resources.