Abstract
This paper presents a preliminary study of the Radar Cross Section (RCS) reduction on the fighter aircraft. First, it was studied the RCS of the aircraft from computational simulations based on prior knowledge of vulnerable areas of this aircraft to radar threats. Subsequently, the possible applications of Radar Absorbing Materials (RAM) on the surface of the aircraft were evaluated, in order to reduce its RCS. The absorber material used in the simulations was denominated FC70, which has good attenuation in the range of 10 to 12 GHz. The study of this reduction was accomplished by applying RAM in four different scenarios at the frequency of 11.1 GHz, where the material is more sensitive. The RCS simulations of the fighter aircraft and its RCS reduction by RAM application were carried out with the support of the software “Computer Simulation Technology” (CST), version 2012. Such technology makes it possible to simulate the application with an absorber material layer on the surface of the aircraft. For the study of the RCS reduction on the fighter aircraft, it was first necessary to develop a detailed 3D model of the fighter aircraft, and it was developed with the software “Computer Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application” (CATIA). In conclusion, it is impossible to make much progress attempting to retrofit stealth onto a conventional aircraft because if the shape is wrong, no amount of absorbing material treatments will reduce the RCS.
Highlights
The goal to reduce a military aircraft’s Radar Cross Section (RCS) is directly related to the distance at which it can be detected by hostile radars
Where: Rmax is the maximum range of the radar detection, Pt is the radar antenna’s transmission power, Pmin is the minimum power detected by the radar, G = Gr = Gt is the radar gain, L are the losses associated to the radar electronics and the environment, and σ is the RCS (Gama and Rezende, 2010; Computer Simulation Technology” (CST), 2012)
In the interest of studying the RCS reduction, the Radar Absorbing Materials (RAM) FC70 was inserted on the library of the CST (Gama and Rezende, 2010; Gama and Rezende, 2005; Gama et al, 2011),which simulated its application in parts of the surface of the aircraft, called Scenarios 1, 2, 3 and 4
Summary
The goal to reduce a military aircraft’s RCS is directly related to the distance at which it can be detected by hostile radars. The radar equation given below (Eq.1) provides a quantitative way to analyze the impact of a target’s RCS reduction in its distance for monostatic radars (Knott et al, 1993): Rmax = [(PtG2λ2 σ) / (4π) PminL)]1/4(1). When analyzing Eq., it is revealed that among the variables of the radar equation, only one possible control by the target aircraft is its RCS, all others are inherent to either the hostile radar system or the environment. An examination of Eq. shows that the RCS of a target should be decreased by sixteen times, so that the maximum detection distance R falls by its half
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