Background Extraction Based on a New Calibrator in Radar Cross Section Measurements

Accurate measurement of low radar cross section (RCS) requires exact extraction and subtraction of the background clutter. In this work, a novel approach based on a newly proposed multipurpose calibrator [1] used as an ancillary test body for background extraction is developed, which is applicable to RCS ranges where a metal pylon is used as the target support. According to the theoretical analysis and mathematical derivation, an optimized fitting of two concentric circles is proposed for more accurate estimation of background clutter by using the measured data of the new RCS calibrator. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed approach.