Faraday Rotation Effect on Space Target Detection Radars

The influence of ionospheric Faraday rotation on space target detection radars has been analyzed in this paper.Combining the magnetoionic theory with ionospheric model and earth magnetic field model,a fast numerical model for computing Faraday rotation angle is proposed.Compared with the traditional empirical computation modules,this method is proved to be more applicable,especially in China area.During the high and low solar activity years,several typical frequencies of worldwide space target detection radars have been used to calculate Faraday rotation angles in different area,such as Haikou and Changchun which are respectively the typical areas of low and middle latitude areas in China.Simulation results have been presented and analyzed to prove that Faraday rotation effect can cause serious signal energy loss to the radars with linear polarization antenna pattern.Thus this rotation effect must be considered on the radar system performance so as to adopt an applicable antenna polarization mode.