Graphic card based simulation of radar in synthetic environments

In the Armed Forces, simulations are getting an increasingly important role for method- and algorithm development, personnel training and evaluation of new equipment. In the report, we examine the prerequisites for making cost effective radar simulations in interactive frame rates with the help of ordinary off-the-shelf (COTS) consumer graphic cards. The report can be divided in three parts where: * the development of graphic cards is discussed in terms of performance and programmability. * common methods for radar signature estimation, and their relation to rendering techniques from the computer graphics community, are discussed. * an experiment application is presented. The application is using a programmable graphics card for radar simulation in a synthetic environment. The method we recommend for future interactive radar simulations is the high frequency approximation GO/PO implemented with Photon Mapping, which is a modern global illumination method derived in the field of computer graphics. Furthermore, we recommend using graphic cards as an inexpensive and powerful computation resource, even for generic, non graphic, scientific calculations.