HIGH-FREQUENCY SCATTERING FROM TRIHEDRAL CORNER REFLECTORS AND OTHER BENCHMARK TARGETS - SBR VERSUS EXPERIMENT

A general method for calculating radar cross section (RCS) from a three-dimensional target is described. The target is first constructed by using a solid geometry modeling computer-aided design (CAD) package developed at the Army Ballistic Research Laboratory. Following the shooting and bouncing ray method, a very dense grid of rays is launched from the incident direction toward the target. Each ray is traced according to the geometrical optics theory including the effect of ray tube divergence, polarization, and material reflection coefficient. At the point where the ray exists the target, a physical optics-type integration is performed to obtain the scattered far fields. We test this method using several simple examples involving interaction among plates, cylinders, and spheres. Our theoretical results are generally in good agreement with measured data.