Radar: Computer-Aided Radar Performance Evaluation Tool (CARPET)

Computer-Aided Radar Performance Evaluation Tool (CARPET)

PAGE UNDER DEVELOPMENT

After several years of development and testing, TNO made the MS-DOS Computer-Aided Radar Performance Evaluation Tool (CARPET) available for use on IBM/PC ATs and compatibles in 1993. Already at that time, a menu-driven user interface was used. Worksheets were provided. CARPET 1 could generate output in Hewlett-Packard Graphics Language (HPGL) format – also known as HP printer control language.

CARPET 1 came with a set of models:

Multipath
Evaporation duct
Surface duct
Jamming
Sea and land clusters
Rain & chaff
Phase noise
Doppler processing

Some images from that time have been captured.

Computer-Aided Radar Performance Evaluation Tool (CARPET) - program start — Computer-Aided Radar Performance Evaluation Tool (CARPET) program start page (1992)

Blind Zone diagram generated by CARPET 1 in 1992

Coverage diagram generated by CARPET 1 (1992)

Received power diagram generated by CARPET 1 (1991) for "A radar" — Received power diagram generated by CARPET 1 (1991) for “A radar”

CARPET version 2

In 2003, the Microsoft Windows CARPET version 2 appeared. CARPET is presumably the most widely used radar performance assessment program.

CARPET version 3

Since the initial release date of CARPET, radar systems have evolved. Solid-state RF power generation is now commonplace, like pulse compression, Doppler filtering and tracking. Modern radar systems apply multiple different waveforms per dwell: pulse lengths, RFs and PRFs stagger from pulse to pulse or from burst to burst. CARPET users, therefore, requested a new release of CARPET, which became available in January 2017. CARPET 3 comes as a base version with improved functionalities such as Firm Track Probability calculations and over thirty additional diagrams including PPI-view diagrams. Its functionality can be further extended by a number of plug-ins:

With the ‘TERPEM Light’ plug-in, CARPET 3 has the highly advanced EM-propagation model TERPEM on board, which comes from Signal Science Ltd.
Users can import WMO radiosonde code and see how this affects the radar coverage.
They can import or construct a refractivity profile.
Users can position the radar in a landscape and can see what the terrain profile does to radar coverage.
Within the Python plug-in, CARPET 3 also comes with an editor in which users can write or import Python code, making use of CARPET functionality.
The ‘Multi-Burst’ and ‘Multi-scatterer target’ plug-ins allow for assessing the performance of solid-state coherent radars in combination with complex targets.

For more information about the current release of CARPET, please contact TNO.