SigmaHat: A toolkit for RCS signature studies of electrically large complex objects

Abstract

In this paper an overview of the SigmaHat radar cross section (RCS) modelling toolkit, developed at CSIR DPSS, is presented. The requirements, design and implementation as well as considerations differentiating it from similar RCS software tools are reviewed. Benchmark results comparing SigmaHat's accuracy and calculation performance with that of the commercial computational electromagnetics (CEM) tool FEKO are also presented. It is shown that SigmaHat can generate RCS results with accuracies comparable to FEKO's asymptotic ray launching geometric optics solver, with improved calculation performance for RCS calculations typically required for radar and electronic warfare (EW) applications.