Calculation and measurement methods for RCS of a scale model airplane

The radar cross section (RCS) of an airplane is very important subject in a military use. As for a RCS estimation object, a scale down model is often employed for the ease of measurements. Recently, electromagnetic simulations of RCS become very convenient because of developments of high speed calculation methods such as MLFMM and HOBF in electromagnetic simulators employing MoM algorithm. As for measurements, high resolution measurements by time domain analysis are employed. In this paper, important characteristics with a scale model are briefly explained. As for calculation, comparisons between actual calculation abilities of MoM, MLFMM and HOBF are made at 18 GHz for 1/48 scale model. As for measurement, a high resolution measurement system employing a compact range and time domain analysis that is used in this study is explained. Next, calculated and measured results are compared in order to show the accuracies of obtained results. Moreover, the effective calculation method in increasing frequency is also investigated in order to estimate the actual RCS value. © 2014 IEEE.