Coupling Model and Electronic Compensation of Antenna-Radome System for Hypersonic Vehicle With Effect of High-Temperature Ablation

Abstract

High-temperature ablation leads to degradation of the electromagnetic performance of the antenna-radome system during flight, which severely restricts the development of hypersonic vehicles with higher performance and higher speed. Therefore, the non-steady ablation process of the antenna-radome system is analyzed. Based on geometrical optics, the transmission performance of the radome under variations of material and structural parameters that are caused by high-temperature ablation is calculated. In addition, the excitation amplitude and phase errors that are output by the transmitter and receiver (T/R) module and amplified by array power supply ripple are analyzed as the temperature of the antenna is increased. An electromechanically coupled model is established accordingly for evaluating the electromagnetic performance of the antenna-radome system with variations of the material and structural parameters of the radome and the excitation current errors of the array elements. A compensation calculation model of the excitation amplitude and phase of the array elements that is based on the coupled model is presented. Finally, a hypersonic vehicle is considered as an example on which to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed coupled model and compensation method. Aerodynamic heat analysis is applied to determine the boundary heat flux density of the radome. Transient thermal analysis, in combination with the “life and death element” method, is used to obtain the temperature distribution and ablation morphology of the antenna-radome system in real time. The performance of the antenna-radome system is calculated and compensated at multiple frequencies and multiple scanning angles. The results demonstrate that the coupled model could calculate the electromagnetic performance of the antenna-radome system under high-temperature ablation and that the compensation method can significantly improve guidance performance of hypersonic flight vehicle.