Dynamic Near-Field Radar Target Modeling in Scene Generator Systems

The importance of simulation in the missile acquisition process and in development of advanced seeker algorithms has been well established.With the ever increasing fidelity of radar sensors and sensor algorithms for aimpoint accuracy, hit-to-kill, and fuzing techniques and the fact that near-field effects of a target can produce significantly different radar signatures, as compared to the far-field signature, techniques and methodologies for these high-fidelity simulation environments need to be considered.Since hit-point adjustments and high range resolution sensor modes occur at very short missile-target ranges, the near-field effect can greatly influence the radar system performance.The need to generate a dynamic phase correction for the near-field effects in a timely fashion to meet simulation update requirements is the crux of the problem to be addressed. These efficient software techniques and methodologies will address both the scatterer model development/update as well as the scene generation software updates necessary to apply dynamic and efficient near-field corrections so to provide realistic signatures to sensors under test.