Air Force Opens Imaging and Radar Test Facility

The US Air Force has improved its ability to measure stealth characteristics of enemy planes with the operation of an upgraded test facility able to conduct wide-bandwidth bistatic imaging and radar cross-section measurements of full-size planes. Bistatic measurements enhance radar cross-section reduction.

Designed by research scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, the mobile system was installed last summer at an outdoor test facility at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. The two radar units on the system are linked by fiber optics for bistatic measurements. The radar systems can also operate independently to take simultaneous measurements of two targets.