A Credit Test Center Determination Method for Circular RCS Measurement Scenarios

An inappropriate installation location of a target on a turntable in scattering measurements causes inessential radar cross section (RCS) fluctuations, which increases the miss-detection probability of peaks in the target's scattering and the test cost for high-accuracy measurements. This letter proposes a credit test location prediction method to obtain the minimum RCS fluctuation. First, a pre-test is conducted to obtain the scattering of a target. Then, the back projection (BP) method is used to access the image of the target under test. Following this, the fluctuation of the RCS is described using the coefficient of variation (CV). Next, the particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to minimize the CV of the RCS for determining the credit test location transformation vector. The verification of the presented method is conducted in the aspects of simulations and indoor measurements. Results show that the presented method reduces the CV of the RCS by 12% for simulations and 22% for measurements.