A time domain RCS measurement system by using an ultra-wide band radar

摘要

This paper introduced a method of investigating radar cross sections (RCS) of the target object using an ultra-wide band radar. Unlike the conventional RCS measurement in frequency domain, this time domain RCS measurement adopted a series of ultra-short pulses to acquire the frequency responses of the echoes scattered from the target object under test. Analyzing the effective power of the echoes scattered by the calibrating object and the target object can show the reflectivity properties of different materials and structures over the frequency band from 0.8GHz to 18GHz through only a single measurement. Theoretical calculations and system configurations are presented, analyzed and optimized in this paper. Demonstration experiments of measuring a 35mm sphere and a handicraft airplane are implemented to verify the feasibility of this proposed method. The final results show this time domain RCS measurement by using an ultra-wide band radar is able to provide the reduction in the measurement procedure complexity, anti-disturbance of measuring surroundings and an agreement with the numerical analysis.