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Radar Cross Section (RCS) plays a significant role in radar design and modern electronic warfare. Important radar research fields like Non-Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR) exploit the RCS signature of a target for identification. Different computational electromagnetic (CEM) techniques can be used to predict the RCS of targets. This paper investigates the accuracy and efficiency with which various asymptotic and full wave numerical methods can predict the RCS of a realistic, electrically large, complex airframe, validated against measured data.

Modern trends in radar and electronic warfare applications require detail information on target scattering signatures, especially calibrated Radar Cross Section (RCS) information of targets in a realistic, dynamic environment. In this paper an active calibration target will be employed to calibrate a ground to air radar system, allowing dynamic RCS measurements.

Design results of a small, low profile printed ring-slot antenna with uni-directional radiation properties will be presented. A single linearly polarized, a dual linearly polarized, and a dual circularly polarized version of the antenna will be shown. The ring-slot antenna radiates above an open cavity loaded with an artificial magnetic conducting (AMC) reflector (see Figure 1). This work is an extension of a previously proposed cavity-backed linear slot antenna (J. Joubert, J.C. Vardaxoglou, W.G. Whittow and J.W. Odendaal, IEEE Trans AP, vol. 60, no. 2, Feb. 2012, pp. 735–742). The newly proposed ring-slot radiator is significantly smaller than the linear slot radiator, and has the ability to be fed in such a way that dual linear and dual circularly polarized radiation can be achieved.