Maritime target cross section estimation for an ultra-wideband forward scatter radar network

Preliminary investigation has shown that a chain of buoy based ultra-wideband (UWB) forward scattering radar (FSR) transceivers could potentially be used to overcome clutter problems for the detection of small marine targets on the sea surface. As one stage of a more in depth system investigation, it was deemed that a thorough analysis of the forward scatter radar cross section (RCS) of typical small maritime targets is required for full understanding of the radar system performance. This paper describes the preliminary results of this study, through use of numerically simulated 3-D FS RCSpsilas of complex target models and comparisons with a proposed simplified analytical FS RCS description.