Radar MASINT
subdiscipline of measurement and signature intelligence
Radar MASINT is a subdiscipline of measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) and refers to intelligence gathering activities that bring together disparate elements that do not fit within the definitions of signals intelligence (SIGINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT), or human intelligence (HUMINT).
According to the United States Department of Defense, MASINT is technically derived intelligence (excluding traditional imagery IMINT and signals intelligence) that – when collected, processed, and analyzed by dedicated MASINT systems – results in intelligence that detects, tracks, identifies, or describes the distinctive characteristics target sources. in the US MASINT was recognized as a formal intelligence discipline in 1986.
As with many branches of MASINT, specific techniques may overlap with the six major conceptual disciplines of MASINT defined by the Center for MASINT Studies and Research, which divides MASINT into electro-optical, nuclear, geophysical, radar, materials, and radiofrequency disciplines.
Radar MASINT is complementary to SIGINT. While the ELINT subdiscipline of SIGINT analyzes the structure of radar directed on a target, radar MASINT is concerned with using specialized radar techniques that measure characteristics of targets.
Another MASINT subdiscipline, radiofrequency MASINT, considers the unintentional radiation emitted from a radar transmitter (e.g., sidelobes)
MASINT radar sensors may be on space, sea, air, and fixed or mobile platforms. Specialized MASINT radar techniques include line-of-sight (LOS), over-the-horizon, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) and multistatic. It involves the active or passive collection of energy reflected from a target or object by LOS, bistatic, or over-the-horizon radar systems. RADINT collection provides information on radar cross-sections, tracking, precise spatial measurements of components, motion and radar reflectance, and absorption characteristics for dynamic targets and objectives.
Radar MASINT can be active, with the MASINT platform both transmitting and receiving.
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This entry incorporates text from “Radar MASINT” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.