Radiation and Scattering of EM Waves in Large Plasmas Around Objects in Hypersonic Flight

TL;DR

This paper presents a hybrid computational approach to analyze electromagnetic wave scattering and radiation in large plasma environments around hypersonic vehicles, addressing radio blackout issues during re-entry.

Contribution

It introduces a novel hybrid method combining Equivalence Theorem and Eikonal approximation for efficient EM wave analysis in large plasma regions around objects.

Findings

Significant radio link losses linked to plasma gradients and collisional effects.

Good agreement with existing literature on plasma-induced RCS alterations.

Validated method against reference results and applied to real re-entry vehicle simulations.

Abstract

Hypersonic flight regime is conventionally defined for Mach larger than 5; in these conditions, the flying object becomes enveloped in a plasma. This plasma is densest in thin surface layers, but in typical situations of interest it impacts electromagnetic wave propagation in an electrically large volume. We address this problem with a hybrid approach. We employ Equivalence Theorem to separate the inhomogeneous plasma region from the surrounding free space via an equivalent (Huygens) surface, and the Eikonal approximation to Maxwell equations in the large inhomogeneous region for obtaining equivalent currents on the separating surface. Then, we obtain the scattered field via (exact) free space radiation of these surface equivalent currents. The method is extensively tested against reference results and then applied to a real-life re-entry vehicle with full 3D plasma computed via Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations. We address both scattering (RCS) from the entire vehicle and radiation from the on-board antennas. From our results, significant radio link path losses can be associated with plasma spatial variations (gradients) and collisional losses, to an extent that matches well the usually perceived blackout in crossing layers in cutoff. Furthermore, we find good agreement with existing literature concerning significant alterations of the radar response (RCS) due to the plasma envelope.