Far-Field Radar Cross-Section Determination From Near-Field 3-D Synthetic Aperture Imaging With Arbitrary Antenna Scanning Surfaces

Abstract

In this study, we propose a generalized algorithm for far-field radar cross-section determination from 3-D synthetic aperture imaging with arbitrary antenna scanning surfaces. This method belongs to the class of techniques called image-based near-field to far-field transformation. The previous image-based approaches were formulated based on a specific antenna scanning surface or trajectory such as a line, a plane, a circle, a cylinder, and a sphere--and the majority of them considered 2-D radar images to determine the azimuth radar cross-section. We generalize the conventional image-based technique to accommodate an arbitrary antenna scanning surface, and consider a 3-D radar image for radar cross-section prediction in both the azimuth and zenith directions. We demonstrate the proposed algorithm via numerical simulations and anechoic chamber measurements.