EM Performance Analysis of Radomes With Material Properties Errors

Modern radomes are commonly made of composites, whose material properties inevitably have errors due to the complicated manufacturing process, thus degrading the electromagnetic (EM) performance of radomes. In this letter, both systematic and random material properties errors are introduced in the EM analysis of radomes. A statistical method is proposed, which relates the random material properties errors to the EM performance of radomes. The tolerance of material properties, including relative permittivity and loss tangent, are determined from experiment. Several significative characteristics about the effect of material properties errors on EM performance are provided. Then, the compensation method through modifying the geometrical thickness is applied to improve the EM performance of radomes with material properties errors, which is proved to be effective.