"Nice radar you got there," followed by "thanks, I just had it jammed," might be the new word exchange among buddy electronics enthusiasts. In a move that might ruffle the feathers of many large companies with exceedingly pricey wares, a Moroccan electronics engineer named Nawfal Motii has designed the open-source Aeris-10 radar system that is purportedly comparable to commercial systems costing $250,000.
Aeris-10 comes in two variants: 10N Nexus with a 3-km range and an 8x16 patch antenna array, and the 10E Extended, capable of reaching up to 20 km thanks to its 32x16 slotted waveguide array. Motii published the entire project on GitHub , including all the necessary schematics, PBC layouts, components, firmware, and software with a GUI for controlling and monitoring the system.
On the technical end, the Aeris-10 uses an XCA7A50T FPGA as a central brain for doing its FFT math, along with Moving Target Indicator (MTI), Doppler-effect estimation of moving object speed, and CFAR false alarm detection control. The figurative spinal cord is an STM32F746xx microcontroller that orchestrates the frequency synthesizers, ADCs, DACs, the GPS, barometer, stepper motors, and cooling setup.
Watch full video on the link above:
The fact that Aeris-10 offers a true phased array system and ±45° elevation/azimuth adjustments are seemingly its differentiating factors. Prices for electronics are exceedingly floaty in these ship-shinking days, but a brief estimate pins the bill of materials at $5,000 for the 10N and $7,200 for the 10E. Despite the number of zeros on those figures, they're pocket change compared to amounts commanded by off-the-truck offerings. A cursory look puts commercial phase-array systems at somewhere $120k and $200k, and well past those prices for longer-range units.
Motii claims that military surplus radars can be had for $10k to $50k, but those are invariably decades-old tech with next to no spare parts availability. He says that building a DIY system is also a hard ask for a small team, as the testing gear can cost $50k on its own. Describing himself as "a guy in a workshop in Morocco with a soldering iron and an obsession," he took it upon himself to fix that particular problem.
Anyone can hit the project's GitHub page and get their own radar system going, but not everyone might have the necessary electronic and mechanical skills necessary for building one. To that effect, Motti says he's reached an agreement with the Crowed Supply platform, aiming for a Q3 2026 release. The site isn't your standard dice-rolling crowd-sourcing platform, though, as apparently it only accepts fully-designed projects with functional prototypes, rejects 90% of submissions, and claims it never had a scam.
Interestingly enough, this project was originally licensed under the MIT license, but Motti was advised that said license does not protect physical hardware, so it changed to the CERN-OHL-PT license. Should you elect to build your own unit, be aware that the frequencies it operates in are almost assuredly highly regulated in your legal jurisdiction.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Saturday July 04, @05:24PM (2 children)
Turnkey, installed by licensed professionals and certified, you're looking at $20K for a weather radar and $20K for the MFD it displays on (which your aircraft may already have...) for a REALLY nice Garmin weather radar.
Note that radar is just one page on a super fancy MFD like this so its unfair to call it "$40K" when most of the MFD is focused on GPS, engine management, comm/nav control, audio routing, navigation, etc. You can practically fly the whole plane thru this little tablet, like interface, nearly. So "$20K+" for nice weather radar seems reasonable. If you plug the data cable from the radar into the MFD now your HSI will display weather radar data in the background...
The article is written weirdly where its comparing "commercial" radars with military radar feature sets like target tracking, so WTF?
Note the FCC has not licensed airborne radars since the 96 telecom revitalization which somehow bled into aircraft and all kinds of other FCC stuff. There are some weird legacy FCC laws about aircraft like no license required for domestic VHF aircraft transmitters, but CROL (not GROL) required for "other stuff" which in the 90s was nothing but in the modern era I'd assume aircraft with satellite internet need a CROL?
The way radar is licensed in the USA at this time, is running aviation radars on the ground is FCC prohibited (beyond blindingly obvious exceptions for testing, etc) and you can't install a radar in an aircraft without FAA "STC" "TSO" acceptance of the radar unit for your airframe. Note I have not done this personally, this is anecdotal from talking to at least 2 or 3 pilots.
So if you want to install, for example a $20K Garmin GWX 75 radar, you need FAA approval or you lose your airworthiness certificate and flying without that is a much bigger problem. Likewise you can't install a MFD like a Garmin 650 without a TSO, that device replaces like half the control panel LOL and costs maybe $15K. Note you'll be blowing some cash on installation.
I think you will find that dealing with the FAA and FCC at a professional level is much chiller than most people expect as long as you're not doing something reckless. So you want special permission to install a newer model MFD on an unusual or rare model Cessna for general aviation use, they will be very chill. Extremely chill in fact. Getting approval from your insurer will be harder (well technically its not approval, its just them not canceling your hull insurance) Likewise the FCC folks are extremely laid back about granting experimental licenses and variances if its not important. But they go a little nuts if you want to install some homebrew experiment on a jet airliner for general public passenger service, that will require serious engineering documentation if they approve it at all.
Type approval costs money. Not a huge amount, usually, but some. So not every piece of avionics is already approved for every airframe. However, essentially all popular avionics are approved for essentially all popular aircraft more or less in advance.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 05, @03:44AM (1 child)
Do you know about ground based weather radar systems?
The US is covered in NEXRAD, which is the kind of weather radar I have come to expect after the literal decades of its ubiquity in my life. Seque to the Eastern Caribbean and all they have is satellite inference which, but comparison, is exceedingly lame for "which end of the island should we go to right now" kind of questions. I was shocked that nobody in the area had setup a decent land based weather radar system when it could benefit so many people, not only tourists.
On the other hand, when you're out on the open water, weather radar is often redundant with just taking a look around to see where the rain is falling and keeping an eye on how it is moving relative to your position. Even in the U.S. I can make better "eyeball" forecasts for storms within 1-2 miles than I can from the best available radar data. Longer range, and direction of motion at a glance - radar is still superior, but when you're looking for "which side of the river should I run down right now" type questions, just looking at the clouds gives more useful information.
🌻🌻🌻🌻✌️ [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06, @10:02PM
On the low end, consider all the radars that are currently being built into cars, and even fancier ones being designed into future cars. These are mostly a few pieces of plastic with some metal plated on for antennas, along with some IC's and CAN bus or Industrial-Ethernet output. First guess, $10/each for basic and $20 for fancy versions (prices in high production volumes).