Development of an airborne radar that can search broadly for ground targets while transmitting data about them at Ka-band is the objective of the Affordable Adaptive Conformal ESA Radar (AACER) program awarded to Raytheon by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). Raytheon was selected to proceed with Phase II of a planned three-phase, four-year program after a competitive down-select at the end of Phase I with Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems. The AACER system is a DARPA funded program being administered by the US Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, MD. Intended for use on rotary, unmanned aerial vehicles in development by DARPA and the Army, the AACER system will feature ground moving target detection and track, dismount detection, synthetic aperture radar imaging and high data rate communications capability at Ka-band. The technology for electronic processing combines elements of Raytheon’s APG-79 electronically scanned array radar for the F/A-18 and seeker technology from the company’s Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile with innovative new low cost millimeter-wave hardware designs.