Good basic description in english is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AESA
Just a few notes: The difference between less capable ESA (Electronically Scanned Array or Electronically Steered Array) and AESA is in beam elements.
ESA is using emmiters with phase shifter. It means, that impulse from every element is phase shifted from previous with exactly defined freqency. When you calculate all impulses, you will see, that radar is not emmiting only forward, but to the sides. The signal goes to the switcher and then to emmiter or receiver. All is managed by powerful computer.
AESA uses many independent T/R modules (something like mini-radars) that requests simplified shifter. Also there is no need to independent emmiter and receiver, because both are integrated in one device. It has lower lost of signal (because shorter way of signal from emmiter to the space) – it also means higher power, elements can emmit signal to different directions, in addition in different frequencies, it is able to multitask. The big advantage is higher circumstantiality. Statistics say that the most often damage is in high-power emmiter. That is in AESA replaced by thousands low-power emmiters and 5 % of them can be damaged without any impact of functionality.
For example compare latest Northrop Grumman AN/APG-80 AESA for SAE F-16 Block 60 with AN/APG-68. It has 140 degrees field of view, 30 % better grasp, bigger area of frequencies and is able to track 20 targets (in enhanced air warning mode up to 50).
Huh, I think that my english passed difficult test 🙂
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