Characterization of radar-absorbing material using time-domain techniques

A new free-space characterization method is proposed to evaluate the performance of absorber material in terms of both its specular reflection and creeping wave performance. A conducting cylinder is chosen as the reference object to generate a creeping wave contribution in the backscattered field. The specular reflection and creeping wave are separated in time due to a path-length difference. This time difference allows the use of time-domain techniques to characterize the absorber material. The individual attenuations of the two components are obtained instead of the attenuation of the total backscattered field. The new measurement technique will be implemented in a compact range to evaluate the performance of commercial radar-absorbing material (RAM)