Modelling evaporation duct effect in radar simulation


Basbilen K., Efe M., Zorba O.

International Conference on Harbour, Maritime and Multimodal Logistics Modelling and Simulation, cilt.1, ss.80-85, 2011 (Scopus) identifier

Özet

Due to the change in the index of refraction of the atmosphere with altitude, electromagnetic (EM) waves can get trapped in a layer and travel long distances. These layers are called atmospheric ducts. Radar's performance is mostly affected by the ducts which are caused by evaporation of water. Evaporation duct changes the maximum detection range of radars operating at 3 GHz and above. Therefore, modelling the evaporation duct is of utmost importance in radar simulators as the frequency range in question is valid for almost all operational radars. However, analytical calculation of the ducting effect during the simulation would require allocating valuable processing time and power for this purpose. In this study, a simple but effective modelling of the ducting effect with minimum processing requirement has been developed based on the data obtained from commercial software tools utilizing complex EM propagation models for detection range calculations.