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

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.