Advances in the testing and evaluation of airborne radar through realtime simulation of synthetic clutter

Abstract

The testing and evaluation of a modern radar is becoming increasingly difficult owing to the adaptive nature of such radars. In general there are two approaches to this problem: Firstly the radar development house can design and build specialised test equipment for each radar. Secondly more generic test equipment can be designed which can be used to test a class of radars. This second approach is especially important to organizations, such as defence evaluation and research institutes (DERI) and other government agencies, which specialize in independent review, acceptance testing and optimisation of the operational utilisation of radar systems. The problem with the "in-house" test equipment in the first option is to prove that it is not biased towards the specific radar it was designed to be a test instrument for. The use of the more general, independently developed test systems is thus required for independent testing and evaluation of radar systems.