Broadband automated radar cross section measurements

A technique for making rapid radar cross section (RCS) measurements over wide frequency bands has been developed. The Hewlett-Packard (HP) automatic network analyzer, which measures scattering parameters at discrete frequencies over a wide band and corrects for system errors before presenting measured data, has been adapted to obtaining RCS measurements. This new technique may be viewed as an automated form of the two-antenna RCS measurement method. RCS ranges based on this technique have been used to make RCS measurements of various targets over an octave bandwidth at VHF and at band. Targets with RCS values greater than -30 dBsm can be measured. Typically the background clutter, antenna cross coupling, and system errors in the absence of a target are reduced by the system measurement techniques to an equivalent value of -45 dBsm.