Detecting Aircraft Shape via SAR

Synthetic Aperture Radar uses signal processing to improve the resolution beyond the limitation of physical antenna aperture. Instead of a real antenna model, uniform plane wave can be used as an excitation. Plane wave illuminates each of the points located in the scattering area under the investigation. The target distributes the impinging electromagnetic wave to all directions; a small portion of the signal is reflected back and received by the antenna. For the SAR image calculation of a 12 m long and 8.05 m wing span fighter’s aircraft, monostatic RCS simulation is performed in 76 equidistant frequency points, from 2 to 3 GHz, and 225 directions for each frequency.

In order to reduce number of unknown coefficients and decrease the simulation time, two reduction techniques are applied: (A)Symmetry and adjusting simulation referent frequency to currently simulated operating frequency.

The simulated SAR image is in good agreement with actual shape of the target, indicating that WIPL-D is very suitable for the very efficient analysis of SAR systems. The simulation is performed on GPU based workstation in approximately 2 days.

Section: Radar Cross Section / Scattering

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