Design and Implementation of Radar Cross-Section Models on a Virtex-6 FPGA

The simulation of radar cross-section (RCS) models in FPGA is illustrated. The models adopted are the Swerling ones. Radar cross-section (RCS) which is also termed as echo area gives the amount of scattered power from a target towards the radar. This paper elucidates the simulation of RCS to represent the specified targets under different conditions, namely, aspect angle and frequency. This model is used for the performance evaluation of radar. RCS models have been developed for various targets like simple objects to complex objects like aircrafts, missiles, tanks, and so forth. First, the model was developed in MATLAB real time simulation environment and after successful verification, the same was implemented in FPGA. Xilinx ISE software was used for VHDL coding. This simulation model was used for the testing of a radar system. The results were compared with MATLAB simulations and FPGA based timing diagrams and RTL synthesis. The paper illustrates the simulation of various target radar cross-section (RCS) models. These models are simulated in MATLAB and in FPGA, with the aim of implementing them efficiently on a radar system. This method can be generalized to apply to objects of arbitrary geometry for the two configurations of transmitter and receiver in the same as well as different locations. 1. Introduction Radar cross-section is used to describe the amount of scattered power from a target towards the radar, when the target is illuminated by RF energy. The intensity of backscattered energy that has the same polarization as the radar’s receiving antenna is used to define the target RCS [1]. RCS is used as means of discrimination. In simulations, the control parameters in the resulted RCS model are optimally tuned using an algorithm so as to show the full potential of the proposed RCS model. The algorithm along with mathematical calculations computes and plots Swerling statistical models. The methodology adopted to design the simulation of RCS model is as follows:(a)development of RCS models for simple and complex objects;(b)generation of the Swerling Random Sequences;(c)verification of results in MATLAB R-2013 real time simulation software;(d)implementation of RCS models in FPGA using VHDL code by Xilinx ISE v12.1ISE;(e)application of simulated models to a radar system. Here the RCS models are developed for simple and complex objects such as ellipsoid, sphere, and cylinder using MATLAB which calculates the backscattered RCS for a perfectly conducting sphere and Spherical Bessel functions are computed using series approximation and recursion. Then