6
Strategy Analytics also predicts:
• North America will continue to represent the largest
regional end market, but the fastest growth will come
from demand in the Asia-Pacic region (see Figure 3).
• Airborne radar will represent the largest market, both
in dollars and total shipments.
• Early warning, surveillance and re control radars will
account for around 76 percent of the global military
radar market.
• L-, S- and C-Band will represent the largest market,
followed by radars operating at X-Band, which reect
the primary frequencies used by surveillance, early
warning and re control radars.
• The total number of radar shipments is forecast to
grow at a CAAGR of 4.6 percent through 2027 to
reach 1,607 units. Fire control radar and early warn-
ing and surveillance radar shipments will account for
48 percent of 2027 military radar shipments.
• The associated market for semiconductors and other
components will grow from $2 billion in 2017 to reach
$5 billion in 2027.
EW
Operational requirements to establish freedom of ac-
tion in contested and congested environments, as well
as the ability to counter modern agile radar and com-
munications will drive opportunities for the EW market.
There is a renewed push to upgrade conventional EW
capabilities that support anti-access/anti-denial (AA/
AD) strategies. This will be coupled with the ongoing
requirement to combat asymmetric threat scenarios.
Future systems will employ wideband solid-state semi-
conductors to enable articial intelligence (AI)-based
machine learning algorithms to provide cognitive analy-
sis of the threat environment. EW will play an important
role in tackling the increasing complexity that comes
with operating in a spectrally constrained environment.
Companies providing systems and enabling technol-
ogies will need to focus on solutions that employ wide-
band materials, such as GaN, and AESA architectures
to enable machine learning-based cognitive analysis,
planning and countermeasures activity that can either
augment or circumvent the traditional threat library.
Strategy Analytics forecasts the global EW market will
grow to $20 billion by 2027 (see Figure 4). The associ-
ated market for semiconductors and other components
for RF-based EW systems will grow at a CAAGR of 8.4
percent through 2027. Future EW program will increas-
ingly use GaN, making this semiconductor technology
a staple ingredient in EW systems. This will be coupled
with requirements for direct and faster digital synthesis
of RF signals across the full frequency spectrum.
COMMUNICATIONS
Military communications operate under an umbrella
of heterogeneous networks that enable the provision
of interoperable voice, video and data services across
a global environment, segmented according to security
policies, transmission requirements and the individual
needs of the end user. In terms of the networked bat-
tlespace, this can be summarized as:
• Upper level networking, consisting of infrastructure
and networking components.
• Mid-level networking providing high capacity back-
haul.
• Support to the tactical edge for end-users and sensors.
Similarly, 5G serves as an aggregator technology that
encompasses a range of network types and technolo-
gies to serve traditional voice, video and data require-
ments to the end user, as well as enabling capabilities
for connectivity across devices, including vehicles, ma-
chines, sensors and devices.
Phased arrays, beamforming, mmWave frequencies,
SATCOM, GaN, duplex communications and shared
spectrum access are among the crossover technologies
that will become common across both commercial and
military communications.
Communicating voice, data and video simultane-
ously and securely over wider and higher bandwidths
in an increasingly complex spectrum environment will
underpin the trends in military communications system
design and supporting components, including software-
dened architectures, solid-state technologies such as
GaN, radio-satellite communications and integration
with wireless networks.
Strategy Analytics forecasts spending on global mili-
tary communications systems and services will grow to
over $36.7 billion in 2026, a compound annual growth
rate of 3.5 percent (see Figure 5).
RF GaN GROWTH
Demand from military radar, EW and communications
applications will provide the primary drivers for GaN
market adoption, and this will be coupled with ongoing
demand from the rollout of commercial wireless infra-
s Fig. 4 Global EW market forecast.
25
20
15
10
5
0
$ Billion
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027
s Fig. 5 Global military communications market outlook, by
segment.
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
$ Billion
Radio SATCOM Datalink Network Other
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 20262016