Passive Radar Jamming: A Novel Method Using Time-Varying Plasma

Based on the resonance absorption effect of plasma, a novel time-varying plasma passive jamming method against one dimensional range profile of radar detection is proposed in this paper. The jamming mechanism of time-varying plasma structure is presented and verified. Based on the transmission line analogy, an instantaneous method is developed to calculate the radar time domain echo and the pulse compression of a target coated by the time-varying plasma. Then, the distortions of radar waveform and spectrum are numerically calculated. Finally, the jamming effect of the time-varying plasma on the one-dimensional range profile of a target is studied systematically for different regulating amplitude and frequency of electron density, radar bandwidth and pulse width parameters. The range profile result indicates that single radar target coating by time-varying plasma structure will generate cloaking effects and produce two or more false radar targets, and the distance between real and false target as well as reduction of echo intensity are related to the radar and regulating plasma parameters. The results show that this jamming method could have a great impact on the one-dimensional range profile, and the results could provide many useful reference to radar countermeasure.