Simulation of the Radar Ground Clutter Based on DEM

The simulation of ground clutter is the key and knot problem in radar simulation system. The simulation of ground clutter based on DEM is studied. It is introduced how to use fractal arithmetic to produce random digital elevation. After obtaining the orographic’s height, draw the 3D terrain with the OpenGL technology, in order to realize the demonstration of 3D terrain. Based on DEM, terrain is divided into many simple grid surfaces. This geometry is constituted by four adjacent high points of the terrain. It is detailed to discuss how to account the power of each unit ground clutter by using radar equation and digital elevation, use the superposition principle to superpose each unit power, and then achieve the ground clutter of entire ground. The entire power of ground clutter wave is got in to unitary processing, correspond it to 0~255 grey level. Through the BMP picture's read-write, the grey level which will obtain was written in the BMP file in order to realize showing of the entire power of ground clutter. The results show that it is fit for what the project needs.