Intelligent Diagnostics for Radomes

Air Force aircraft have sophisticated electromagnetic avionics, including radar, radar warning, and electronic countermeasures. The radomes covering these systems are critical components that protect from the elements while supporting aerodynamic flight. Radomes also have rigorous specifications in transmission efficiency, boresight or beam deflection error, and/or sidelobe performance. With such requirements, maintenance of these radomes requires high-confidence assessment of their operational performance after repair and refurbishment in the depot. Thus, a system is needed that quickly scans radomes to reliably assess health and performance. Traditionally, radome performance testing has been done in indoor or outdoor measurement ranges, which are expensive assets to not only build but also maintain, making them a significant cost and time sink when refurbishing radomes. More recently, the US Air Force invested in a new paradigm for radome diagnostics that utilizes scanning microwave probes to create a digital twin of a radome under test.That said, the recently deployed ‘Generation-1’ system still requires maturation to realize its full potential. Other Air Force and DoD radome repair shops have become aware of this new method and technology gaps for addressing the broader range of radomes across different weapon systems have become evident. Therefore, this project will develop the second generation of intelligent radome diagnostics by introducing new AI tools, scanning refinements, and Advanced Aircraft radome capabilities to the adaptive radome diagnostic system (ARDS) and radome operational performance evaluation (ROPE) tools. The planned effort includes development of new algorithms and methods that will result in software upgrades to the existing microwave scanning system. The effort will include installation of the various developed upgrades at Robins AFB and demonstration of their utility on Air Force radomes.