SkyRadar’s Active Target brings real RF range deception and RGPO into the lab, connecting physical radar measurements with hands-on ECCM analysis.
What is an active radar target?
A passive radar target reflects part of the electromagnetic energy transmitted by a radar. Its radar return is determined by factors such as geometry, material, orientation, distance and radar cross section.
An active target does something fundamentally different. It receives the illuminating radar signal and retransmits a controlled response.
This gives the training system the ability to modify what the radar receives. Depending on the implementation, the retransmitted signal can be amplified or delayed, creating effects that cannot be produced with a simple passive reflector.
For radar education, this opens an important progression:
Passive reflection → active return → range deception → dynamic RGPO
The distinction matters. Modern electronic-warfare training should go beyond demonstrating that an electronically generated echo can be made stronger. Trainees should also be able to investigate how deliberately manipulated radar returns behave over time — and how such manipulation can be recognised.
Not every active target provides the same training value
Active targets have been used in radar laboratories for decades. A basic active target can already demonstrate an important principle: receive the radar signal and retransmit it with greater amplitude.
That remains a useful experiment, but it represents only the beginning of active-target training.
| Training method | What the trainee observes | Educational objective |
| Passive reflector | Natural radar echo | Understand radar reflection and target detection |
| Active amplification | Electronically enhanced return | Understand the active-target principle |
| Fixed range deception | Artificial return at a different apparent range | Investigate electronic range manipulation |
| Dynamic RGPO | Deceptive return progressively separating from the genuine return | Analyse dynamic deception and ECCM approaches |
The transition from a fixed artificial return to a dynamically changing deceptive return is particularly important.
Instead of merely asking:
“Can I generate another radar echo?”
the trainee can investigate:
“Can a deceptive echo move away from the real target — and how can the radar detect that something is wrong?”
This turns an active-target demonstration into an electronic-warfare experiment.
What is RGPO?
Range Gate Pull-Off (RGPO) is a range-deception technique intended to influence the range-tracking process of a radar.
Conceptually, a deceptive return initially appears close to the genuine target return. The deceptive signal is then progressively displaced in apparent range.
In an operational tracking radar, RGPO is intended to draw range tracking away from the genuine target.
For education, however, reproducing an entire operational tracking or weapon system is neither necessary nor desirable. What matters is making the underlying phenomenon observable.
In the SkyRadar laboratory, trainees can reproduce and analyse controlled deceptive range behaviour: a false return is displaced relative to the genuine radar return, allowing the principle of RGPO and approaches to its detection to be investigated using measured radar data.
This distinction is important. The objective is not to emulate an operational weapon system. It is to expose the signal behaviour on which range-deception and ECCM concepts are based.
Why dynamic RGPO matters in radar education
A fixed delayed echo demonstrates that apparent target range can be manipulated electronically.
RGPO adds another dimension: time.
The deceptive return does not simply appear at another range. Its relationship to the genuine return changes progressively.
That gives the trainee a much richer problem to analyse:
- Where does the deceptive return first appear?
- How does its apparent range change?
- How does it relate to the genuine target return?
- Which characteristics indicate that the observed movement may not represent a physical target?
- Which signal-processing or ECCM methods can help identify the deception?
The student therefore moves from observing an effect to analysing deceptive behaviour.
This is one reason why simple echo amplification alone is no longer sufficient for an advanced electronic-warfare training laboratory.
The SkyRadar Active Target: bringing deception into the physical laboratory
The SkyRadar Active Target is designed to introduce controlled active-target and RGPO-oriented effects into short-range radar training.
It works together with the SkyRadar NextGen 8 GHz Pulse Radar, providing a physical RF experiment in which trainees can compare an ordinary radar return with an electronically modified one.
A typical experiment begins with a baseline:
NextGen 8 GHz Pulse Radar → Real target return → FreeScopes
The Active Target is then introduced:
NextGen 8 GHz Pulse Radar → Active Target → Modified radar return → FreeScopes
The experiment can subsequently progress towards controlled range deception:
Genuine return → Deceptive return → Progressive range displacement → ECCM analysis
The important point is that the trainee is not simply watching an animation of RGPO. A real radar is making a physical measurement.
The Active Target introduces the controlled effect into that measurement, and the resulting radar data can then be observed and analysed.
From physical deception to ECCM analysis
Creating deception is only half of the educational problem.
The next question is:
How can we recognise it?
This is where the Active Target becomes particularly valuable as part of the wider SkyRadar training environment.
The NextGen 8 GHz Pulse Radar provides the physical radar measurement.
The SkyRadar Active Target introduces the controlled deceptive effect.
FreeScopes ECCM I provides the environment in which trainees can investigate the resulting radar data and build processing chains for detection and analysis.
This enables a progression from electronic attack to electronic counter-countermeasures within the same laboratory.
Students can compare the radar scene before, during and after the deceptive effect and investigate how different processing approaches respond.
Rather than simply being told that RGPO can deceive a radar, they can work with the resulting data themselves.
Why use real hardware when RGPO can be simulated?
Simulation is extremely valuable in electronic-warfare education.
SkySim can generate controlled scenarios with known parameters. Scenarios can be repeated, modified and compared without the practical constraints of reproducing every effect physically.
But simulation and physical experimentation answer different questions.
Simulation asks: What happens under a defined set of parameters?
Physical experimentation asks: What does the effect actually look like after RF transmission, reception and real radar measurement?
This makes the two approaches complementary rather than interchangeable.
A useful training architecture therefore combines:
- SkySim — controlled and repeatable scenario generation
- SkyRadar Active Target — physical RF deception
- NextGen 8 GHz Pulse Radar — real radar measurement
- FreeScopes ECCM — observation, processing and analysis
The Active Target anchors the electronic-warfare curriculum in a real RF experiment, while simulation allows the same concepts to be expanded into scenarios that would be difficult or impractical to reproduce physically.
From a simple experiment to advanced ECCM training
The same hardware environment can support different levels of technical qualification.
1. Observe a passive radar return
The trainee begins with a physical target and observes its radar return. This establishes the baseline against which subsequent experiments can be compared.
2. Introduce an active return
The Active Target demonstrates that a radar return can be generated or modified electronically. The trainee compares the active response with the passive baseline.
3. Introduce range deception
Controlled delay demonstrates that an electronically generated return can appear at a different range. The trainee can now distinguish between the physical position of a target and the range indicated by a manipulated radar signal.
4. Investigate dynamic RGPO
The deceptive return is progressively displaced relative to the genuine return. Range deception becomes a dynamic process rather than a static demonstration.
5. Analyse the deception with ECCM
The trainee uses FreeScopes ECCM to investigate how the deceptive behaviour can be detected and distinguished from genuine target behaviour.
The learning objective has now progressed from observing radar echoes to analysing the trustworthiness of radar information.
A modern active target is more than an echo amplifier
This progression illustrates an important change in radar education.
Traditional radar laboratories were primarily designed to teach transmission, reflection, range, Doppler, antennas and signal processing. These fundamentals remain essential.
But the environment in which modern radar engineers work has evolved.
Electronic attack, deceptive signals, ECCM, advanced signal processing and increasingly AI-assisted radar interpretation mean that trainees must also understand a fundamental problem:
A radar return is not necessarily what it appears to be.
An amplified active return demonstrates that radar echo strength can be manipulated.
A delayed return demonstrates that apparent range can be manipulated.
Dynamic RGPO demonstrates that deception itself can evolve over time.
This is where the active target moves beyond a traditional radar teaching accessory and becomes a tool for contemporary electronic-warfare education.
From RGPO to AI: building the complete learning chain
The Active Target is also one element of a larger SkyRadar approach to hands-on electronic-warfare training.
In our previous article, “From a Real Radar Echo to AI: Building a Hands-On Electronic Warfare Learning Chain”, we described the complete progression from physical radar measurement through controlled deception and classical ECCM to AI-based radar perception.
The Active Target occupies a particularly important position in that chain:
REAL RF → ACTIVE TARGET → ECCM → AI
It is the point at which a normal radar measurement becomes a deliberately manipulated radar scene.
This also creates an important bridge towards AI training.
Before asking an AI model to classify or interpret radar data, trainees should understand where that data originates, how it can be manipulated and why apparently plausible measurements may be deceptive.
The resulting learning progression becomes:
Measure the echo.
Manipulate the echo.
Observe the deception.
Detect the deception.
Evaluate whether the radar information can be trusted.
That is the role of the SkyRadar Active Target: not simply to make another echo appear, but to turn range deception and RGPO from textbook concepts into observable and measurable laboratory phenomena.
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