Consideration to radome technology for IR seeker

The radome is one of the key components of infrared seekers. Especially for the missiles flighting in high speed, a lot of thermal stress is generated into the radome by rapid thermal shock, and the mechanical stress induced by the pneumatic pressure. In order to solve the problem of highspeed infrared seeker radome, material selection and radome design techniques are introduced. The factors which should be considered when the radome material is selected are analyzed according to the environmental requirements of high-speed infrared imaging seekers. It is found, by comparing the performance of the material parameters, that the spinel is the ideal radome material because of its good mechanical property, optical performance and easy preparation. The spinel was successfully applied for the high-speed IR seeker radome. A solution to reduce the aerodynamic heating effect of the radome by diamond film coating, signal processing and conformal design is proposed according to the analytical results of aerodynamic heating. The design principle and fabrication technology of conformal radome are introduced.