Miss distance measurement based on stable scattering centers of extended targets

Miss distance measurement of missile warheads without empennages is introduced. The estimation error in miss distance measurement induced by the body scattering effect of this type of targets is studied in detail and a method for miss distance measuring based on stable scattering centers of extended targets is presented. Based on the investigation in physical mechanism of scattering centers and their changes with incident directions, stable scattering centers are found out and used to estimate the miss distance through the Doppler frequency variation, which can effectively avoid the wild value of Doppler frequency and lead to more accurate result than common methods. The simulation based on a full-wave numerical method is implemented and the simulation results verify the effectiveness of this method.