Issues in the calibration of bistatic RCS measurements

Author

Bradley, C.J. ; Collins, P.J. ; Temple, M.A. ; Terzuoli, A.J., Jr. ; Nesti, G. ; Fortuny, J. ; Lewis, G.D.

Author_Institution

Air Force Inst. of Technol., Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, USA

Volume

1

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

293

Abstract

A performance evaluation of several existing polarimetric calibration techniques for bistatic radar cross section (RCS) measurements is in progress. Several calibration test objects, including: cylinders, a dihedral, a trihedral, a sphere, and other noncanonical objects were measured at the European Microwave Signature Laboratory (EMSL), Joint Research Center (JRC), Ispra, Italy. Each object was measured with and without a systematic alignment error to determine the effects on each of the calibration techniques considered. Three calibration types were designated, based on their capability to predict each coefficient of a 20-term error model of the antenna polarization distortion matrix (PDM). The bistatic RCS predictions were completed using a commercially available moment method code to validate the measurements for alignment precision and noise/distortion levels

Keywords

calibration; method of moments; radar antennas; radar cross-sections; radar polarimetry; 20-term error model; PDM; antenna polarization distortion matrix; bistatic RCS measurements; bistatic radar cross section; calibration; cylinders; dihedral; noncanonical objects; polarimetric calibration techniques; sphere; systematic alignment error; trihedral;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

iet

Conference_Titel

Antennas and Propagation, 2001. Eleventh International Conference on (IEE Conf. Publ. No. 480)

Conference_Location

Manchester

Print_ISBN

0-85296-733-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1049/cp:20010290

Filename

927667