---
title: Palindrome Radar
description: Use Test-Driven Development (TDD) to implement a function that identifies whether a radar signal string is a palindrome—to determine if it represents a UFO.
---

[Katas ](https://www.codurance.com/katas)

# [Palindrome Radar](https://www.codurance.com/katas/palindrome-radar)

 Written by [Riley Wallace](https://www.codurance.com/katas/author/riley-wallace) | Jul 10, 2025 9:29:49 AM

## Summary

NASA’s latest radar technology captures shape signatures of flying objects as strings of characters. As everyone knows, UFO’s are shaped like saucers and are therefore symmetrical. If a radar signal string is a Palindrome then it is symmetrical and represents a UFO. A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or sequence of characters that reads the same forwards and backwards.

## Your Task

Implement a function that accepts a radar signal string and if it is symmetrical in shape determines that it is a UFO, otherwise it is not. If the string is a Palindrome then it is deemed symmetrical.

## Input

A string representing the radar signal for the object. Ignore spaces, punctuation and differences in letter case.

## Output

Return True if the input string is a Palindrome and therefore represents a UFO signature, False otherwise.

## Rules

Ignore capital letters, punctuation, and word dividers. Any character other than alphanumeric characters are classed as punctuation. Numbers in the radar signal should be treat as strings.

## Examples

1. "anna" => True   
2. "anna!" => True   
3. "race car" => True   
4. "race car1" => False   
5. "Race car" => True   
6. "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!" => True   
7. "axDbTbd6" => False   
8. "6axDbTbd6" => True   
9. "Hello, World!" => False

 

 

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