Edge element calculation of radar cross section of small maritime targets with respect to height of radar antenna

From the aspect of navigational safety and collision avoidance it is very important to be able to detect small maritime targets such as buoys and small boats. Ship's radar is supposed to detect these types of targets, however the ability of radar to detect such targets depends on several factors. The most important factors affecting the detection probability of small maritime targets are height of the antenna installation on the ship and radar cross section of the target. The methods of computation radar cross section are diverse and complicated, however, in this paper we apply our previously published numerical method for the RCS computation which had proven to be very accurate. Physically to find RCS of the target one has to find the solution of electromagnetic scattering problem. The numerical method relies on the combination of finite edge volume elements and finite edge boundary elements to obtain the solution of Maxwell equations. The radiation pattern of ships radar antenna is the source of excitation for the numerical method. At the end of the paper the RCS of small maritime targets as the function of antenna height is shown. These results can be used as a parameter in radar design, as well as the guideline for the height of installation of the ship's radar antenna above the sea.