A Framework for Modeling a Real-Time Radar System

Models are useful mathematical abstractions of real-world systems. These models are parameterized, to the detail necessary, to enable the study of systems dynamics under a wide variety of different conditions that would be difficult, if not impossible, to create otherwise. In this paper, we present the Mixed Reality Simulation Platform (MIXR). This framework facilitates modeling radar systems with sufficient detail to support typical real-time interactive military training exercises and experiments. MIXR has been in development and use since the late 1980s, with the current incarnation being written in the object-oriented C++ programming language. The framework’s usefulness to help engineers and software developers rapidly prototype both standalone and distributed applications has proven itself over the years, as many different simulation products have been created and used within the military domain. In this seminal paper, we focus exclusively on modeling radar systems within the MIXR code-base.