INVESTIGATION OF EDGE SCATTERING BY HIGH-RESOLUTION POLARIZATION DIVERSITY RADAR IMAGING

The paper analyses the polarimetric behaviour of scattering centres showing up in experimental highly resolved two-dimensional radar images of metallic cubes and plates in terms of Kennaugh's and Huynen's target characteristic operator theory. For each scattering centre, the authors determine the dependence of the characteristic angle-gamma and of the target skip angle-nu on target aspect-theta and frequency. The authors find: (i) cube: GTD simulations accounting only for first-order wave propagation to and from the cube edges describe the experimental findings; (ii) plates: the frequency dependence of gamma and nu reflects the interference of the two nonresolved edges of the narrow face of the plate. GTD simulations accounting for higher-order scattering agree reasonable with experiment.