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A closed form, physical optics expression for the radar cross section of a perfectly conducting flat plate over a dielectric half‐space
Author(s) -
Anastassiu Hristos T.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1029/2002rs002688
Subject(s) - radar cross section , physical optics , physics , scattering , cross section (physics) , optics , moment (physics) , lossy compression , dielectric , geometrical optics , space (punctuation) , radar , expression (computer science) , field (mathematics) , mathematical analysis , computational physics , geometry , classical mechanics , mathematics , computer science , telecommunications , quantum mechanics , statistics , pure mathematics , programming language , operating system
The physical optics approximation is employed in the derivation of a closed form expression for the radar cross section (RCS) of a flat, perfectly conducting plate of various shapes, located over a dielectric, possibly lossy half‐space. The half‐space is assumed to lie in the far field region of the plate. The well‐known “four‐path model” is invoked in a first‐order approximation of the half‐space contribution to the scattering mechanisms. Numerical results are compared to a reference, Moment Method solution, and the agreement is investigated, to assess the accuracy of the approximations used. The analytical expressions derived can facilitate very fast RCS calculations for realistic scatterers, such as ships in a sea environment, or aircraft flying low over the ground.