An Overlapped Scan Method for Enhanced 3D Radome Characterization

An aircraft´s nose cone is a protective cover for the aircraft that not only provides aerodynamic stability, but also typically serves as an electromagnetically transparent shield for a radar that is located behind it. Formally known as a radome, these thin, multilayer fiberglass covers have desired electrical performance parameters to ensure proper radar signal transmission and reception. Of particular importance are the transmission efficiency and horizontal beam deflection as seen throughout the radome. Over time, radomes deteriorate in response to moisture, bird strikes, lighting strikes, aging, delaminations, and the like. There is to date, however, very little literature on visualizing, localizing, and characterizing transmission efficiency errors of radomes in a 3D rendering based on measured data. This paper introduces a new method for accomplishing this by introducing a new mathematical technique for processing received signals of adjacent scans.