A review of high-frequency radar cross section analysis capabilities at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace

Two basic types of physical-optics (PO)-based radar cross section (RCS) analysis codes have come to maturity in today´s HF electromagnetic analysis environment. These are facet based and curved surface based codes. Facet codes have very fast analysis rates, while curved-surface codes are usually considered more accurate. At McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA), the need for very reliable RCS results to guide the aircraft design process has led us to develop a curved surface based high-frequency code. This code is called CADDSCAT (computer-aided design drafting scattering). Various aspects of CADDSCAT´s curved surface and facet based analysis capabilities are described and compared. Topics covered include the genesis of curved surface based PO techniques, a discussion of first-bounce PO computations, and multiple-bounce PO interactions. CADDSCAT´s first-bounce and multiple-bounce PO algorithms include options for treating radar absorbing materials (RAM). The CPU needs for the ray-tracer algorithms, for curved and faceted models, are compared. Gap diffraction, resistive-card modeling, and sea-surface modeling are briefly discussed