RAM

Happy Independence day everyone.

Today let me give you a glimpse into one of the leading research areas in the world of defence technology. Ladies and gentlemen put your hands together for RAM. RAM stands for a lot of things among them a Hindu god, random access memory, an automobile company etc... but I am not talking about these. What I am focusing on is a lesser known RAM.

This RAM expands into Radar Absorbent Materials. Now I chose this topic to write on today because it has great significance for the nation as well as for me. In one of my previous articles I had talked about destructive interference as a means of avoiding or delaying detection. This time let us explore another angle to this predicament of making an aircraft stealthy. And this time it can be termed as an epic battle between Mechanical and Electronics Engineering.

Radar absorbent materials are specially designed materials that have the ability to absorb electromagnetic radiation (RADAR waves) and convert that energy into heat (as the universal law of conservation of energy states that "energy can neither be created nor be destroyed, it can only be converted from one form to another"). This is achieved simply by trapping the electromagnetic waves and preventing them from reflecting but in reality it is not so simple. RAM is generally applied in the form of paint over an aircraft (that is why stealth aircraft are usually black or grey in colour) but this requires a lot of maintenance (this is not the average paint that you apply on your front gates).

In essence you are basically engineering a material to fool a radar, that is why I called it a battle earlier. Now the the next logical step in RAM technology is to integrate the radar absorbing properties onto the structure of the aircraft itself to eliminate the high maintenance requirement of paints. Though use of composite material is on the rise and is right a step in this direction, much more has to be done in terms of research and development. As a matter of fact this was exactly what I did for my capstone (final year) project and that is why I mentioned that this topic is very much significant to me in the beginning (there was a lack of expertise and equipment as I am not from a top tier institution, believe me I tried very hard to get into one LOL). The material that we (myself and my teammates) engineered for use in aircraft structure was not only able to reduce reflection of radar waves but also could convert the energy into electricity rather than heat. Yay me.