Research on Minimum Energy Excited to Plasma Coating for Reducing Radar Cross Section of Target

Abstract

To reduce the radar cross section (RCS) of a target, plasma coating on perfectly electric conducting plate is studied in this paper. Nonuniform helium plasma produced by a minitype solid rocket engine is with collisional and unmagnetized. Energy excited for generating helium plasma is investigated. Based on the collisional, unmagnetized, and cold plasma model, backscattering RCS is computed by using finite-difference time-domain method. Principle of RCS reduction is explained. To find minimum input energy while RCS reduced, relationship between input power and RCS reduction is discussed, and numerical optimization is also implemented. We can identify optimal parameters and choose the best electron density profile under condition of given input power level.