Effects of Hardbody-Plume Interactions on Radar Returns

An effective missile defense will require an understanding of the combined radar signature of a hardbody and plume and a capability for predicting that signature. While there is a well developed technology and understanding of radar for the detection of missile hardbodies, the coherent radar signature of the time averaged plume properties can confuse interpretation of the hardbody signature. This issue cannot be resolved because there is presently no efficient computer code for determining this plume signature. Moreover, even if it were easily computed, there is no current technology directed at understanding and utilizing the radar return from the combination of a missile hardbody and its exhaust plume. Thus, the overall objectives of the Phase I program are to develop: (1) modeling approaches to efficiently compute the contribution of the coherent plume signature to the total signature and (2) a coupling strategy between hardbody and plume RCS codes to predict the total signature.