Naval corner reflector decoys

The report presents the result of a preliminary study on corner reflector decoys for marine environments. Corner reflector decoys belong to the category of passive radar countermeasures, and they are basically made up of different types of corner reflectors. The study consists essentially of two parts where one part is a computational study of the radar cross section (RCS) for some examples of corner reflector decoys, and the other part is to a collection of available information from open sources. The purpose of the calculations has been to get an idea of the size and the variation of the RCS of some structures. The modeled objects are about 1 m in diameter and consist of perfect conducting material. Their radar cross sections are of course very aspect dependent, which would be desirable since this applies to real targets, such as ships. There are two types of decoys. One type is designed to float on the sea surface while the other type primarily is intended to operate while it slowly falls down in the air. It is considered that the structural decoys in some aspects resemble the RCS of a ship better than chaff. The discussion part of the report is based on general knowledge and some questions remain to be answered before comments can be made on the similarity between ships and decoys.