Abstract: With the continuous development of military equipment, passive detectors such as electronic support measures, radar warning receivers and electronic intelligence receivers now possess very powerful detecting capability to locate a warplane or battleplane and so its airborne radar facilities must have good radio frequency (RF) stealth property to avoid the radio frequency signals being intercepted. The relationship between the detecting range of an airbone radar and the intercepting range of passive intercepting receivers is analyzed and the influence of the agile space scanning mode of antenna on a warplane RF stealth performance is considered. The drawbacks of using the Schleher intercept factor to evaluate the RF stealth of a warplane is discussed and a new method of utilizing the signal intercept probability to appraise RF stealth is proposed. Finally, the factors affecting the signal intercept probability is computed and analyzed and the designing strategy and technical approach of battleplane RF stealth is put forth. The signal intercept probability synthesizes the RF stealth characteristics of an aircraft in the three domains of time, frequency and space. It is therefore of considerable value to airplane RF stealth design.

Key words: airborne radar, passive detector, radio frequency stealth, signal detection, affecting factors