Problems of radome design for modern airborne radar

The operation of airborne radar involves a discrimination between targets and ground clutter. A solution of the resulting problems requires the design of antennas with special characteristics. Efforts of the antenna designer, however, will be defeated if the antenna is protected by a radome which fails to provide the same high performance as the antenna. The present investigation is concerned with problems arising in the design of high-performance radomes, taking into account two important airborne radar systems. The first example involves the E-3A (AWACS), the most modern airborne surveillance radar system now in operation. The second example is related to a typical fire-control radar in a modern tactical aircraft.