Real-time aircraft radar simulator for a navy training system

Abstract

A real-time aircraft radar simulation applied in naval training is presented. The implemented algorithm works on a 3D synthesized environment, described by large sets of polygons - a typical scene can have a million of triangles - and the lobe is discretized with a cluster of rays. The radar display is recreated solving fast ray-polygon intersections (a variation of Ray-Shooting), and mapping them on the screen. This work proposes a new polygonal simplification method and a geometric classification algorithm in order to solve the intersections efficiently. This methodology leads to high fidelity images and real-time radar simulation, which operates at the specified 15 revolutions per minute rate. The results were tested with trained aircraft pilots. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.