How SOSA Is Future Proofing Radar and Electronic Warfare Systems

As radar and electronic warfare (EW) systems face faster threat evolution and increasing bandwidth demands, defense programs are under pressure to modernize without re-architecting entire platforms. The Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA™) standard has emerged as a foundational enabler for this shift—allowing rapid technology insertion, multi-vendor interoperability, and lifecycle resilience.

In this Q&A article, we explore how SOSA is future-proofing radar and EW systems, the technical challenges involved, and what continued adoption means for system architects and program sponsors.

1. What specific problems does SOSA solve for radar and electronic warfare systems?

   SOSA fundamentally enables rapid, low-risk technology insertion, allowing radar and electronic warfare systems to evolve at the pace of emerging threats rather than the pace of platform redesign. There’s a renewed sense of urgency as AI models are being trained to identify vulnerabilities in radar and EW systems to both stress test the limits of its capabilities and areas for improvement. When vulnerabilities are identified, it becomes a high priority to resolve them as quickly as possible. A system designed to SOSA open standards allows programs to quickly implement upgrades with the best solution while minimizing impact to the system architecture.

2. What are the biggest technical challenges in implementing SOSA for radar and EW applications compared to other military systems?

   The biggest technical challenge is building resource overhead into the initial set of program requirements, especially when it relates to EW and radar. The front-end spectrum of interest is rapidly expanding. It was only a few years ago when the upper limit of the spectrum of interest was 8GHz.

   Now, next-gen EW systems are requiring 18GHz and beyond across many RF channels. Is the system architected to support the massive influx of data acquired across the 18GHz spectrum if it was initially designed for 8GHz? Timing architecture, backplane selection, power supplies, cooling – can all of these be planned so when the time comes for rapid technology insertion the system does not need to be re-architected? This is not a SOSA shortcoming but rather about planning as far ahead as possible and building resource headroom into the system.

3. How does SOSA help industry keep pace with rapidly evolving threats in the electromagnetic spectrum?

   There are exciting new technologies on the industry roadmap that are ideal solutions for countering evolving threats in the electromagnetic spectrum. Using the push towards 18GHz as an example, the development resources to bring such a product to market is quite high and requires a substantial resource investment. Knowing that a product is being designed to SOSA – and that new programs are embracing SOSA – allows multiple developers to invest with confidence. That confidence accelerates innovation and ensures advanced RF and processing technologies are available sooner to counter emerging threats.

4. What role does SOSA play in reducing costs and development time for radar and electronic warfare systems?

   With multiple developers investing to deliver a SOSA solution, there’s a “time-to-market” mentality which means program sponsors can have access to the latest technology earlier and quickly qualify them to counter evolving threats. In addition, SOSA standardization inspires an innovative design approach as developers look to differentiate their products in creative ways, whether it’s processing density, reliable RF acquisition across temperature, or higher levels of integration. Designing to SOSA standards creates real competition at the card and subsystem level. Program sponsors gain multiple qualified options, which drives cost efficiency while ensuring the best-performing solution is selected for each mission.

5. How far along is the industry in adopting SOSA for radar and EW systems, and what obstacles remain?

   The transition from legacy to SOSA is real. It is common to see SOSA as a requirement in RFPs (Request for Proposal) for new programs. There are active programs that were developed before SOSA was announced, and in terms of deployed product today, these pre-SOSA boards are very popular. However, as mentioned earlier about making the necessary investments in next-generation cutting-edge technology, most new product announcements in our industry today are SOSA, whether it’s FPGA carriers, SBCs, switches, GPUs, chassis and so forth. These are the SOSA building blocks that are being developed in response to RFPs for next-gen EW and radar systems. In addition to SOSA, we are seeing more interest in MORA (Modular Open RF Architecture) which standardizes low-latency RF data communication between boards from different vendors. RF interoperability has traditionally been proprietary, but we are seeing more MORA-enabled hardware which will further increase the adoption of SOSA for EW and radar systems.

    

Abaco Systems supports SOSA, MOSA and MORA aligned architectures across radar, electronic warfare, and signal intelligence applications, helping system designers plan for long-term adaptability from the start. SOSA boards are currently deployed in Land, Sea and Air applications today. We are seeing technology insertions occurring already from 1^st generation SOSA deployments. These have allowed near field upgrades to next generation architectures allowing for significant cost and time savings.

For more information, contact:

Cory Lippert

Director of Marketing

Abaco Systems | AMETEK

cory.lippert@ametek.com