Research on the motion and scattering characteristics of intermittent long chaff

With the development of high-resolution, distributed, and network-integrated radar systems, the traditional chaff is facing problems such as insufficient interference efficiency and difficulty in maintaining three-dimensional shape. In order to develop a new low-dimensional and efficient chaff jamming method, an intermittent long chaff is proposed, which is composed of traditional chaffs in series. Its motion and scattering characteristics in the thin atmosphere are studied by modal analysis and numerical simulation. This type of chaff is formed by connecting several traditional chaffs at a certain distance in consideration of shortening effect. It aims to maintain a high chaff density in the distance cell by restricting the free diffusion of the traditional chaffs on it in the thin atmosphere, thereby improving the radar interference efficiency. Simulation results show that the radar cross section (RCS) of a single 7.44 m intermittent long chaff within two minutes does not show a downward trend under different pointing conditions, and only fluctuates around the average value. The average RCS of a single 7.44 m intermittent long chaff at frequency points in the X-band is improved compared with traditional chaffs of the same quality, and at least 3 dB higher at 10 GHz. The average RCS of the chaff cloud formed by 100 randomly distributed intermittent chaff is about −9 dBSm, which is 6−7 dB higher than that of the chaff cloud formed by traditional chaffs under the same conditions. The new intermittent long chaff can provide support for the efficient cost-effective protection of typical small RCS targets.