Active Metamaterial-based Chaff for Radar Deception
Abstract
The ability to detect airborne targets from large distances is a key function, required in many civiland military applications. In particular, Radar systems are capable of detecting aircrafts,approaching from far distances, by sensing them with electromagnetic radiation. Developingsystems for avoiding opponents counter-air defense is a task of a highest importance for ally airforce and navy. Electromagnetic chaff for Radar deception was invented for those purposes andalready employed during the Second World War for the first time, where it had demonstratedexceptional performances. Aluminum foil strips of centimeter sizes (half wavelength of the carrierfrequency) were dropped off aircrafts and created false alarms on opponents Radar displays. Sincethan the technology was advanced and simple countermeasures of this kind do not work anymore.Radar systems continue developing nowadays and most systems can detect both range and velocityof targets with sophisticated signal processing techniques. Doppler Radars can easily distinguishbetween static chaff and truly moving targets, even though the latter may have smaller scatteringcross sections.In this Research we will develop semi-active chaff particles, which utilize the modern concept ofmetamaterials and metasurfaces with electronically reconfigurable electromagnetic properties.Three main steps must be accomplished in order to reach the main objective. The first one is thedemonstration of compact electromagnetic structures with high scattering cross sections. Theconcept of metamaterials allows introducing material degrees of freedom (both permittivity andpermeability) as powerful design parameters, which will enable designing physically smallstructures with high scattering cross sections, visible to opponents radar systems. The next step isto make those structures to look as if they are moving by generating a fake Doppler shift. This willbe achieved by introducing smart time modulation of electromagnetic properties of the chaffparticles. The key fundamental and technical challenge here is to design and implement a propertime variation over entire bandwidth of an opponents Radar. The last and the most challengingpart is to fake the range and the range rate. In order to fake the range change, sophisticatedmetamaterial structures, demonstrating tunable delayed reflection will be designed anddemonstrated.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 05, 2021
- Source ID
- N629092112038
Entities
People
- Pavel Ginzburg
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Tel Aviv University
- United States Navy