An overview of advanced processing techniques for RCS measurements

For the last ten years, VSD (formerly ERIM International) has had the opportunity to work with several government and industry RCS ranges to develop an intimate understanding of the errors that can occur in making RCS measurements of today´s sophisticated targets. This has led to the successful development and demonstration of a variety of advanced processing techniques (APTs) to improve the quality and utility of both indoor and outdoor RCS/ISAR data. These include algorithms for removal of clutter, RFI, and target-support contamination (including interactions), prediction of far field RCS from near field measurements, suppression of multipath contamination, and extraction of scattering features. Several of these are summarized in a table. A discussion and examples of each are also provided.