Failure Mechanisms of Radar and RF Systems

Prognostic Health Management (PHM) is an emerging technology that provides the framework for being able to monitor a product's health, whilst in service. In order to be able to apply (PHM) to a system, a comprehensive analysis of the common causes of faults within the system needs to be carried out. This paper presents a review of fault causes within a military radar system using a Failure Modes Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) and puts together a framework for applying prognostics in order to monitor the health of the system. A review of the reliability and degradation mechanisms in RF devices is also presented.