Research on the Efficiency of the Application of Angle and Lens Simulators of Modern AIr Target

An important element of the target equipment of modern and promising target unmanned aerial vehicles is the means of simulating the effective scattering area of air targets of various types in the radar range of ultra-high frequencies. The most common passive air target simulators are angular simulators (triangular, square, circular and biconical). Recently, more and more attention has been paid to the creation of passive air target simulators based on spherical and cylindrical Luneberg lenses. The conducted studies have shown that among the angular air target simulators, the square simulator provides the largest effective scattering area, but at the same time it has the narrowest indicatrices in both planes and a less durable design. The widest monostatic indicatrices in both planes are provided by triangular air target simulators, which determines their advantages in use, despite the relatively low value of the effective scattering area. Compared to others, angular simulators are simple in design, technological in manufacture, have high mechanical rigidity, provide quite good values of the effective scattering area in wide ranges of irradiation angles with relatively small physical dimensions. One of the promising directions in the development airborne target simulators in the radar wavelength range is the use Lüneberg lenses spherical and cylindrical shapes, in which the scattering characteristics vary according to a specific law depending on the distance from the center in spherical lenses or from the axis in cylindrical lenses. The results of conducted studies have shown that, given the same size and irradiation wave frequency, lens-based airborne target simulators provide a significantly larger effective radar cross-section compared to corner reflectors, allow coverage of the entire frequency range of waves, and match the effective radar cross-section of modern aerial attack systems. The highest effective radar cross-section is characteristic of simulators based on spherical Lüneberg lenses with a metallized segment in the form of a “cap”.