Radar Target Signature Modulator

A radar target signature modulator (RTSM) concept is proposed based on technologies and implementations developed for RF missile seeker hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) simulation facilities at the Redstone Arsenal Missile Research and Development Center. For the proposed application, these designs must be extended to be ultra-wideband, covering 2 GHz at the center of X-band. With the advent of commercially available wideband I&Q modulators operating at X-band, the tapped delay concepts developed for narrowband HWIL applications can now be applied to the development of the RTSM system described in the topic synopsis. The tapped delay implementation permits the generation of multi-scatterer target range profile signatures incorporating large numbers of scatterers for each of two orthogonal polarizations. The tapped delay design is independent of target model scatterer count, depending only on the maximum radar range resolution. The real-time tap modulation is independent of changing radar waveforms. This technique has been verified and validated in its narrowband implementation. The extension of the tapped delay system to cover the required 9-11 GHz band will be challenging but relatively low-risk.