Graphics for visualizing RCS as a function of frequency and angle

Over the past few years, the David Florida Laboratory (DFL) has conducted extensive measurements of the radar cross section (RCS) of simple, "canonical" targets, and of scale models of real-life targets. Software has been written for computer-controlled acquisition of the RCS, over a wide frequency band, as a function of the angle of incidence on the target. This article presents specialized graphics formats which have been developed to effectively visualize the RCS. Different color palettes for depicting RCS values are compared. The RCS can be graphed as a "color map" in a rectangular format, with the angle on the x axis and the frequency on the y axis. But the RCS as a function of the incidence angle is better perceived when plotted in a polar format, with the angle around the circumference and the frequency along the radius. Moreover, when the radius is proportional to the frequency, RCS color maps display striking geometric patterns, related to the basic scattering mechanisms of the target. This feature provides a useful analytic and pedagogical tool.<>