Simulation of Phased Array Wide-Field of View Radars for Space Surveillance

Europe intends to develop its own Space Surveillance System as part of a more comprehensive Space Situational Awareness System. In the design process, simulations help to determine appropriate system architectures for given user requirements. In order to provide such a simulation environment, the ESA Program for Radar and Optical Observation Forecasting (PROOF) can be applied. The existing model for phased-array radar simulations only takes into account a simplified antenna pattern. A new simulation approach is envisaged within a current PROOF software upgrade. It considers the complete scanning area as a single field-of-view, with borders of the scanning area defined relative to the line of sight, and with path offsets randomly selected to cover the scanning area.