Introduction to RF Stealth
Providing a new generation of designers with a firm and proven basis for new developments, this book presents and explains first order methods for the design of active and passive stealth properties.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction to RF Stealth
Chapter 1: Introduction to Stealth Systems
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Guessing and knowing are two completely different things. The objective of stealth is to keep the adversary guessing until it is too late. Over the past few years, stealth platforms, especially aircraft, have come into public consciousness. However, stealth research work was conducted in earnest beginning in the mid-1970s and was spearheaded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in both U.S. Air Force and Navy programs. Most of those programs are still shrouded in secrecy, but a few, especially the earliest, are now declassified, and the basic notions of Stealth technology can be described. For reasons of classification, nothing can be said about deployed aircraft such as the F-117A and the B-2, pictured in Figs. 1.1 and 1.2, respectively, but they grew out of those early programs. Several generations of technology have now passed, as embodied by such aircraft, but the basic stealth concepts remain the same.
Figure 1.1: F-117A Stealth attack fighter (photo by author)
Figure 1.2: B-2 stealth bomber (photo by D. Whelan)
The Stealth Challenge
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Survive and prosper in the future environment of improved sensors, dense countermeasures, antiradiation weapons, and emitter locators.
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Become invulnerable or invisible.
The Stealth Approach
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Force the threats to use active sensors sparingly by employing antiradiation missiles and electronic countermeasures.
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Decrease predictability and increase "randomness" to force the threats to increase complexity and cost of intercept receivers, surveillance, fire control, and missiles.
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Reduce active and passive signatures and increase "hiding" to make weapon systems less visible.
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Use tactics that...
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