David Knox Barton (born 1927 in Greenwich, Connecticut) is an American radar systems engineer who has made significant contributions to air defense, missile guidance, monopulse radar, low-altitude tracking, air traffic control, and early warning radar. He had authored a well-regarded series of reference books on radar engineering in the late 1970s. David Barton was one of the people behind the MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile system. In 1997, Barton was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to radar system design and analysis.