With the growing effort to improve road safety, an accurate characterization of the automotive targets is important. Automotive radar is one of the sensors among others that help detect and identify targets.

This paper introduces a method of calculating the radar cross section (RCS) of any arbitrary complex target at near field range; also known as, “near-field RCS” (NF-RCS). In this paper, near-field RCS is calculated not only as a function of range but also as a function of aspect angle. Computational electromagnetic methods are used to calculate the near-field RCS of a metal plate and a vehicle as targets. The use of simulation to calculate near-field RCS improves the design process, reduces testing time and cost.