3-D Bistatic Scattering from Fractal Surface Using Extended Boundary Condition Method

Abstract

We develop the extended boundary condition method (EBCM) to solve the 3-D vector electromagnetic scattering problem from natural bare soil surfaces. Natural surfaces are modeled by the Weierstrass–Mandelbrot fractal surface (FS) that is widely recognized as the most accurate model to describe the natural surfaces properties. The EBCM-FS is developed based on the equivalence theorem that has no limitation on surface roughness in principle. The EBCM-FS is applied to simulate the bistatic scattering cross sections of Mars religoth surfaces. The numerical performance of the EBCM-FS has an equation system much smaller than the numerical method. Solving an equation system including 105 Floquet modes takes 5.4 s for one realization. These properties are expected to make the EBCM-FS as a competitive forward solver to give a better understanding of the measurements of L-band radar returns from Martian surfaces.