Low Cost Measurement of Small Boat RCS at 94GHz

This paper discusses a procedure to measure the radar cross section (RCS) of small boats at 94 GHz. It describes a simple and moderately low cost set of hardware that was used to perform these measurements. Results include polar patterns made from the peak RCS at each angle and probability density functions to characterise the distribution of RCS. In the case of the largest boat, a 41 ft fly-bridge cruiser, it was possible to process the high resolution range profile data to identify the positions of the larger scatterers. Analysis of the measured data for all of the craft shows a linear relationship between the median RCS of the non-metallic boats and their physical cross-section when viewed side on