ADVANCED RADAR CROSS SECTION MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS

TO DESIGN MILITARY DELIVERY SYSTEMS OF MINIMUM RADAR CROSS SECTIONS (RCS) AND RADAR SYSTEMS CAPABLE OF DETECTING MINIMUM RCS OBJECTS, THERE IS THE NEED FOR AN EFFICIENT ALGORITHM THAT CAN ACCURATELY CALCULATE THE PERTURBATION TO THE WAVE FIELD CAUSED BY OBJECTS OF ARBITRARY SHAPE. A METHOD OF SOLUTION BASED ON THE USE OF A NATURAL COORDINATE SYSTEM WHICH CONFORMS TO THE ARBITRARY SHPAES OF THE SCATTERING OBJECT IS PROPOSED. IT IS SHOWN THAT THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SCATTERING PROBLEM CAN BE FORMULATED IN THIS COORDINATE SYSTEM RIGOROUSLY AND CAN TREAT OBJECTS CONTAINING A NESTED SET OF SHARP INTERFACES SEPARATING MATERIALS WITH INHOMOGENEOUS AND ANISOTROPIC PROPERTIES IN THE REGIONS BETWEEN THE INTERFACES. NUMERICAL SOLUTIONS BASED ON THIS FORMULATION CAN BE EXPECTED TO BE MORE EFFICIENT AND ACCURATE. THE TECHNIQUE IS ALSO GENERAL AND CAN BE APPLIED TO EITHER TWOOR THREE-DIMENSIONAL PROBLEMS. UTILIZING THIS TECHNIQUE, IT SHOULD ALSO BE POSSIBLE TO DO THE INVERSE PROBLEM AND UNFOLD, NOT ONLY THE SHAPE, BUT ALSO THE MATERIAL PROPERTIES FROM THE SCATTERING DATA TO DISTINGUISH REAL THREATS FROM DECOYS. THE PROPOSED SIX-MONTH PHGASE I EFFORT IS TO DEVELOP THE BASIC FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM AND IDENTIFY THE COMPUTATIONAL REQUIREMENTS TO TREAT THE FULLY GENERAL PROBLEM IN THREE DIMENSIONS.