An Estimation of RCS through Configuring Element Analysis

Radar Cross Section(RCS) is a measure of how detectable an object is with a radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected. Informally, the RCS of an object is the cross-sectional area of a perfectly reflecting sphere that would produce the same amount of reflection strength as the object in question would. In order to estimate RCS of aircraft weapons the external surface is modeled as a collection of simple shape elements. And the overall RCS is estimated as a vector sum of configuring elements` cross-sections which are well known given by analytic formulae. A RCS estimation code is developed for a typical shape of Air-To-Surface bombs and missiles. Size of weapons and location of fins are implemented in the code in addition to the presence of canards. The ability to predict radar return from flying vehicles becomes a critical technology issue in the development of stealth configurations. This simplified method of RCS estimation is known to be fast and accurate enough in an optical region of high frequency incident radio wave.