Analysis of Radome Cross Section of an Aircraft Equipped With a FSS Radome

Abstract

We study the radar cross section (RCS) property of an aircraft considering the electromagnetic (EM) characteristics of a frequency selective surface (FSS) radome, mounted on the aircraft. Instead of full-wave methods, we utilize high-frequency methods, such as the shooting and bouncing rays (SBR), physical theory of diffraction (PTD), and flat model, taking a significant computational efficiency. Based on the developed algorithm, we analyze monostatic and bistatic RCSs of the aircraft equipped with either single- and multi-layer dielectric, FSS, or PEC radomes in terms of frequency and polarization. Our calculations are validated by comparing with those of the commercial EM simulator with significant computational efficiency. The present numerical study indicates that including the radome EM characteristics into the overall aircraft RCS study is crucial for the accurate RCS estimate