IIT Mandi researchers created a new technology to prevent military equipment from radar detection

NEW DELHI: The researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi has developed an artificial structure/material that can make stealth vehicles and well as covert establishments less visible to the radar. The researchers formed a material that can absorb a wide range of radar frequencies (signals), irrespective of the direction from which the radar signal hits the target.

In addition to covering windows, it is also used to protect covert establishments and stealth vehicles from radar detection. RCS reduction is a way to make something less visible to radar – RCS stands for Radar Cross Section. In order to reduce the RCS, materials that absorb radar signals are necessary, or objects can be shaped in such a way that radar is difficult to detect.

The observations found in the study were have published in the journal, IEEE Letters on Electromagnetic Compatibility Practice and Applications, co-authored by Dr Shrikanth Reddy, Assistant Professor, School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, IIT Mandi and his team Dr. Awanish Kumar ( First Author) and Mr. Jyoti Bhushan Padhi.

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Elaborating the research work, Dr G Shrikanth Reddy, IIT Mandi, said, “We have developed a technology based on Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) that absorbs a wide range of frequencies used in radar, which makes the surface invisible to radar.”

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The proposed design uses an optically transparent ITO-coated PET sheet where the FSS patterns are created on this PET sheet. The FSS pattern on the PET sheet were created with the laser engraving technology, and due to symmetrical and lossy nature of FSS patterns, the proposed absorber is polarization insensitive and absorbs a wide range of EM wave frequencies with in in C, X and Ku Band.