Bistatic scattering from three-dimensional layered rough surfaces

An analytical method to calculate the bistatic-scattering coefficients of a three-dimensional layered dielectric structure with slightly rough interfaces is presented. The interfaces are allowed to be statistically distinct, but possibly dependent. The waves in each region are represented as a superposition of an infinite number of up- and down-going spectral components whose amplitudes are found by simultaneously matching the boundary conditions at both interfaces. A small-perturbation formulation is used up to the first order, and the scattered fields are derived. The calculation intrinsically takes into account multiple scattering processes between the boundaries. The formulation is then validated against known solutions to special cases. New results are generated for several cases of two- and three-layer media, which will be directly applicable for modeling of the signals from radar systems and subsequent estimation of a layered medium subsurface properties, such as moisture content and layer depths.     

Note on the scattering of waves by rough surfaces

A calculation of back scattering from a rough surface using Huygen's principle is carried out along the lines introduced by Davies. Davies original equation is extended to include a contribution from the component of the surface normal which is parallel to the average surface. The effect of this component is to multiply the usual expression for incoherent backscatter by a factor of1/ cos^{4} PsiwherePsiis the angle between the radar line of sight and the normal to the average surface.     

A comparison of scattering model results for two-dimensionalrandomly rough surfaces

Bistatic radar cross sections are calculated using two modern scattering models: the small slope approximation (both first- and second-order), and the phase perturbation technique. The problem is limited to scalar-wave scattering from two-dimensional, randomly rough Dirichlet surfaces with a Gaussian roughness spectrum. Numerical results for the cross sections are compared to those found using the classical Kirchhoff, or physical optics, approximation and perturbation theory. Over a wide range of scattering angles, the new results agree well with the classical results when the latter are considered to be accurate. A comparison between the new results shows that the phase perturbation method gives better results in the backscattering region for correlation lengths greater than approximately one wavelength, while both the first- and second-order small slope approximations yield greater accuracy in the forward scattering direction at low grazing angles     

Forward-backward method for scattering from dielectric rough surfaces

The iterative forward-backward (FB) method is a recently proposed efficient technique for numerical evaluation of scattering from perfectly conducting rough surfaces. Extension of the method to include scattering from imperfect conducting surfaces, with a high imaginary part of the complex dielectric constant, has also been proposed. The FB method is further generalized to analyze scattering from dielectric rough surfaces with arbitrary complex dielectric constant. Electric and magnetic equivalent surface currents are split into forward and backward components and equations governing these current components are obtained. As a solution, an iterative scheme is proposed and its convergence rate is analyzed. Finally, the effectiveness of the method is assessed by comparing the obtained scattering results with "exact" ones, computed by employing the usual method of moments (MoM).     

A higher order parallelized multilevel fast multipole algorithm for3-D scattering

A higher order multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA) is presented for solving integral equations of electromagnetic wave scattering by three-dimensional (3-D) conducting objects. This method employs higher order parametric elements to provide accurate modeling of the scatterer's geometry and higher order interpolatory vector basis functions for an accurate representation of the electric current density on the scatterer's surface. This higher order scheme leads to a significant reduction in the mesh density, thus the number of unknowns, without compromising the accuracy of geometry modeling. It is applied to the electric field integral equation (EFIE), the magnetic field integral equation (MFIE), and the combined field integral equation (CFIE), using Galerkin's testing approach. The resultant numerical system of equations is then solved using the MLFMA. Appropriate preconditioning techniques are employed to speedup the MLFMA solution. The proposed method is further implemented on distributed-memory parallel computers to harness the maximum power from presently available machines. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the method as well as the convergence of the higher order scheme     

Scattering from multiple objects buried beneath two-dimensional random rough surface using the steepest descent fast multipole method

Generalized formulations are presented to analyze the electric field scattered from multiple penetrable shallow objects buried beneath two-dimensional random rough surfaces. These objects could have different materials, shapes, or orientations. In addition, their separation distance may range from a fraction of a wavelength to several wavelengths. The fast algorithm, steepest descent fast multipole method (SDFMM), is used to compute the unknown electric and magnetic surface currents on the rough ground surface and on the buried objects. Parametric investigations are presented to study the effect of the objects proximity, orientations, materials, shapes, the incident waves polarization, and the ground roughness on the scattered fields. A significant interference is observed between the objects when they are separated by less than one free space wavelength. Even when the clutter due to the rough ground is removed, the return from the second object, can be dominating causing a possible false alarm in detecting the target. The results show that the distortion in target signature significantly increases with the increase of both the proximity to a clutter item and the ground roughness.     

Analysis of scattering from very large three-dimensional rough surfaces using MLFMM and ray-based analyses

Several techniques are considered for the analysis of electromagnetic scattering from rough ocean surfaces. A rigorous Multi-level Fast Multipole Method (MLFMM) is employed, as well as a high-frequency ray-based solution. The MLFMM analysis is implemented in scalable form, allowing consideration of scattering from very large surfaces (in excess of 100/spl lambda//spl times/100/spl lambda/, where A represents the electromagnetic wavelength). Plane-wave incidence is assumed, and a key aspect of the MLFMM study involves investigating techniques for rough-surface truncation. The rough surface is modeled as a target placed in the presence of an infinite half-space background; to minimize edge effects, the surface is smoothly tapered into the planar half space. We also consider the technique of employing a resistive taper on the edges of the rough surface. These two truncation techniques are compared in accuracy, memory requirements (RAM), and in computational time (CPU). The MLFMM results are used to validate an approximate ray-based high-frequency model that allows rapid analysis of large surfaces. The computational results are compared to measured forward-scattering data from scaled laboratory measurements, used to simulate scattering from an ocean surface.     

On the far-field approximation for scattering from randomly rough surfaces

Various authors have justified the far-fields approximation for rough surface scattering using one of the classical approximations for the scattered fields, usually considering either the coherent scattered field or the incoherent scattered intensity. An exact expression for the field scattered from a perfectly conducting rough surface is considered. The expression for the incoherent scattered intensity is formally derived, and a condition under which the far-field approximation is valid is found, independent of specific approximations for the surface or scattered fields or for the surface height statistics. The condition so derived is, under many circumstances, substantially less restrictive than that derived before in the general case. Furthermore, the previous results may be easily recovered by further specialization of our result.     

Bistatic specular scattering from rough dielectric surfaces

An experimental investigation was conducted to determine the nature of bistatic scattering from rough dielectric surfaces at 10 GHz. This paper focusses specifically on the dependence of coherent and incoherent scattered fields on surface roughness for the specular direction. The measurements, which were conducted for a smooth surface with ks<0.2 (where k=2π/λ and s is the RMS surface height) and for three rough surfaces with ks=0.5, 1.39, and 1.94, included observations over the range of incidence angles from 20° to 65° for both horizontal and vertical polarizations. For the coherent component, the reflectivity was found to behave in accordance with the prediction of the physical optics model, although it was observed that the Brewster angle exhibited a small negative shift with increasing roughness. The first-order solution of physical optics also provided good agreement with observations for hh-polarized incoherent scattering coefficient, but it failed to predict the behavior of the vv-polarized scattering coefficient in the angular range around the Brewster angle. A second-order solution is proposed which appears to partially address the deficiency of the physical optics model     

A new theory for scattering of electromagnetic waves fromconducting or dielectric rough surfaces

The problem of electromagnetic scattering from a conducting or dielectric rough surface with arbitrary shape is studied. An exact solution, using a differential method, is provided for a plane wave with one-dimensional irregularity of the interface. The problem is reduced to the resolution of a linear system of partial differential equations with constant coefficients, and to the computation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a truncated infinite matrix. Numerical application is made to show the angular distribution of energy density in the case of an arbitrary profile of the scattering surface and its evolution when the nonperiodic profile tends to become periodic. The near field is computed on the interface and its enhancement in the illuminated region is observed. It increases with the height of the irregularity and with the frequency     

A heuristic algorithm for the bistatic radar cross section forrandom rough surface scattering

Examines a heuristic algorithm which guarantees reciprocity in the cross-section equations when the phase perturbation approximation is used. The results obtained using a Gaussian surface roughness spectrum are superior to those of either the phase perturbation or the reversed phase perturbation method and agree well with the exact results obtained using a Monte Carlo integral equation technique     

Preconditioned iterative solution of scattering from rough surfaces

Extensions to the functionally identical forward-backward (FB) and method of ordered multiple interactions iterative techniques have been introduced that improve the convergence characteristics with specific scattering geometries. These extensions are shown to be mathematically equivalent to applying preconditioners to the discretized integral equation that is iteratively solved. The same preconditioners can be used with any iterative solution technique. Numerical examples show that the generalized minimal residual (GMRES) and bi-conjugate gradient-stable (BICGSTAB) algorithms give similarly rapid convergence when applied to a preconditioned discretized integral equation     

Quasi-ray Gaussian beam algorithm for short-pulse two-dimensional scattering by moderately rough dielectric interfaces

We consider short-pulse (SP) time-domain (TD) two-dimensional (2-D) scattering by moderately rough interfaces, which separate free space from a slightly lossy dielectric half-space, and are excited by one-dimensional (1-D) SP-TD aperture field distributions. This study extends to the SP-TD in our previous investigation of time-harmonic high frequency 2-D scattering of Gabor-based quasi-ray Gaussian beam fields excited by 1-D aperture field distributions in the presence of moderately rough dielectric interfaces (Galdi et al.). The proposed approach is based on the Kirchhoff physical optics (PO) approximation in conjunction with the Gabor-based quasi-ray narrow-waisted Gaussian pulsed-beam (PB) discretization (Galdi et al.), which is applied to the SP-induced equivalent magnetic surface currents on the interface that establish the TD reflected/transmitted fields. We show that, for well-collimated truncated SP incident fields, the PO-PB synthesis of the reflected/transmitted fields yields an approximate explicit physically appealing, numerically efficient asymptotic algorithm, with well-defined domains of validity based on the problem parameters. An extensive series of numerical experiments verifies the accuracy of our method by comparison with a rigorously-based numerical reference solution, and assesses its computational utility. The algorithm is intended for use as a rapid forward solver in SP-TD inverse scattering and imaging scenarios in the presence of moderately rough dielectric interfaces.     

Forward-backward method with spectral acceleration for scattering from Layered rough surfaces

A fast method of moments is presented to calculate electromagnetic wave scattering from layered one-dimensional rough surfaces. The formulation is provided for M stratified homogeneous regions, separated by M-1 rough surfaces, and solved using point matching and pulse basis functions. Compared to the single surface case, the solution of scattering from M-1 surfaces requires significantly more memory and computational time. To facilitate the solution, the forward-backward method with spectral acceleration is applied. As an example, a dielectric layer on a perfect electric conductor surface is studied. The numerical results are compared with the analytical solution for layered flat surfaces to partly validate the formulation. The accuracy, efficiency, and convergence of the method are then studied for various rough surfaces and layer permittivities.     

Electromagnetic scattering from slightly rough surfaces withinhomogeneous dielectric profiles

Remote sensing of soil moisture using microwave sensors require accurate and realistic scattering models for rough soil surfaces. In the past, much effort has been devoted to the development of scattering models for either perfectly conducting or homogeneous rough surfaces. In practice, however, the permittivity of most soil surfaces is nonuniform, particularly in depth, for which analytical solution does not exist. The variations in the permittivity of a soil medium can easily be related to its soil moisture profile and soil type using the existing empirical models. In this paper, analytical expressions for the bistatic scattering coefficients of soil surfaces with slightly rough interface and stratified permittivity profile are derived. The scattering formulation is based on a new approach where the perturbation expansion of the volumetric polarization current instead of the tangential fields is used to obtain the scattered field. Basically, the top rough layer is replaced with an equivalent polarization current and, using the volumetric integral equation in conjunction with the dyadic Green's function of the remaining stratified half-space medium, the scattering problem is formulated. Closed-form analytical expressions for the induced polarization currents to any desired order are derived, which are then used to evaluate the bistatic scattered fields up to and including the third order. The analytical solutions for the scattered fields are used to derive the complete second-order expressions for the backscattering coefficients as well as the statistics of phase difference between the scattering matrix elements. The theoretical results are shown to agree well with the backscatter measurements of rough surfaces with known dielectric profiles and roughness statistics     

Multiple-incidence and multifrequency for profile reconstruction of random rough surfaces using the 3-D electromagnetic fast multipole model

A fast algorithm for reconstructing the profile of random rough surfaces using electromagnetic scattering data is presented. The algorithm is based on merging a fast forward solver and an efficient optimization technique. The steepest descent fast multipole method is used as the three-dimensional fast forward solver. A rapidly convergent descent method employing a "marching-on" strategy for processing multifrequency and multi-incidence angle data is introduced to minimize an underlying cost function. The cost function represents the error between true (synthetic) and simulated scattered field data. Several key issues that impact the accuracy in reconstructing the rough profile are examined in this work, e.g., the location and number of receivers, the incident and scattered directions, the surface roughness, and details regarding the manner in which sensitivity information is computed in the inversion scheme. The results show that using the multiple-incidence (one angle at a time) and the multifrequency (one frequency at a time) strategies lead to improve the profile reconstruction.     

三维电大目标散射求解的多层快速多极子方法

为进一步提高对电大尺寸目标散射求解的能力,详细研究了多层快速多极子方法.重点设计了用于多层快速多极子方法的各种优化方法包括Morton编号、转移因子修正内插技术与外向波重复存储策略.对于未知量数目为N的三维电磁散射,数值实验显示多层快速多极子方法具有O(NlogN)量级的计算量、O(N)量级的存储量,特别适合求解三维电大尺寸目标的电磁散射.利用该方法在单机(内存1Gb)上成功计算了未知量为25万的电大尺寸目标散射.     

Numerical simulation of scattering from three-dimensional randomlyrough surfaces

Randomly rough surface patches in three dimensions are generated on the computer. The FD-TD method is used to compute scattering from surface patches by converting the Maxwell's equations into difference equations using a central difference approximation for the space and time derivatives. The volume of grids above the rough surface is divided into the total field and the scattered field regions. In between these two regions, obliquely incident waves are generated. To reduce computation, the volume of grids is chosen to be small, and a transformation is used to convert the scattered field into far zone fields for bistatic scattering coefficient calculations. Possible errors near the edge of the surface due to the use of a relatively small volume are suppressed by introducing a windowing function. Very good agreements are obtained between the results obtained by this method and those calculated by an integral equation method (IEM) for scattering from randomly rough perfectly conducting and dielectric surfaces     

Numerical simulation of scattering from rough surfaces: awavelet-based approach

In this paper, a preliminary study is carried out to demonstrate the application of wavelets for improving the computation time and reducing computational memory required for evaluating the statistics of the scattered field from rough surfaces using the method of moments (MoM) in conjunction with a Monte Carlo simulation. In specific, Haar and the first order B-spline wavelet basis functions are applied to the MoM formulation of one-dimensional rough surfaces in order to compare the computation time and sparsity for wavelets in the same family but of higher order. Since the scattering coefficient (the second moment of the backscatter field per unit area) is a gentle function of the surface parameters and the radar attributes, it is demonstrated that a relatively high thresholding level can be applied to the impedance matrix, which leads to a sparser impedance matrix and faster computation time. It is also shown that applying a high threshold level the coefficients of the high-order wavelets would increase out of proportion, however, the effect of these current components averages out when computing the scattering coefficients. The resulting sparse impedance matrices are solved efficiently using fast search routines such as the conjugate gradient method. A systematic study is carried out to investigate the effect of different threshold levels on the accuracy versus computing speed criterion. The computed scattering coefficients are compared to previous results computed using a conventional pulse basis function as well as the existing theoretical solutions for rough surfaces. It is shown that wavelet basis functions provide substantial reductions in both memory requirements and computation time