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The Design and Implementation of a Ray-tracing Algorithm for Signal-level Pulsed Radar Simulation Using the NVIDIA® OptiXTM Engine

Mogamat Yaaseen Martin 1, Simon L. Winberg 1, Mohammed Yunus Abdul Gaffar 1, and David Macleod 2
1. University of Cape Town, Cape Town 7701, South Africa
2. Centre for High Performance Computing, Cape Town 7700, South Africa

Abstract—This paper presents the design and development of a ray-traced, signal-level pulsed radar simulation algorithm and a novel ray aggregation technique using the NVIDIA® OptiXTM engine for propagation modelling. This is expected to aid radar engineers and researchers in systems design, testing, and training. The program supports the short- and long-range simulation of various radar scenarios using complex target and signal models with a high degree of realism. This was achieved through raytraced radio propagation and geometry modelling, simulating realistic multipath signal interactions with mesh-based objects as opposed to the more traditional point-model approach. The designed algorithm has also been implemented as an open-source ray-tracing module and was verified against an established radar software package.
 
Index Terms—Ray tracing, software engineering, radar

Cite: Mogamat Yaaseen Martin, Simon L. Winberg, Mohammed Yunus Abdul Gaffar, and David Macleod, "The Design and Implementation of a Ray-tracing Algorithm for Signal-level Pulsed Radar Simulation Using the NVIDIA® OptiXTM Engine," Journal of Communications vol. 17, no. 9, pp. 761-768, September 2022. Doi: 10.12720/jcm.17.9.761-768

Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.