Numerical modeling results of radar signatures for large and complex targets

Abstract

Radar signatures of complex targets for different frequencies, aspect angles and target positions are needed in various radar application areas. In addition, specific scattering centers of complex real radar targets have a strong impact on the overall signature of the target. However, measurements are mostly inefficient for providing the required information and for studying the behaviour of such targets, as well as for performing the required radar tasks. Thus, radar signature predictions are very important in radar applications and are basically derived by applying numerical modeling tools developed within the computational electromagnetics community. In this paper, numerical modeling results of radar signatures for various large and complex targets are presented, which highlight recent advances in two different simulation codes developed at FGAN-FHR. The main objective of the simulations is to study the electromagnetic properties of significant scattering centers like deep cavities, which often arise in real radar targets (aircraft, vehicles etc.). Another important task is to investigate the high resolution range profile (HRRP) behaviour of such structures as well as the effect of those scattering centers to the overall radar cross section (RCS) of the corresponding targets. Further, the presented simulation results provide investigation of the trade-off between computation time and accuracy for the applied numerical modeling methods, which is very important for successful and accurate simulation of complex radar targets with reasonable computation times.