Optimization of ray tracing algorithm for Laser Radar Cross Section calculation based on material Bidirectional Reflection Distribution Function

Abstract

This paper studied the Laser Radar Cross Section (LRCS) of the target scale model by using the Bidirectional Reflection Distribution Function (BRDF) of materials and the Monte Carlo method for reverse ray tracing. The results of the research are shown through data from the satellite scale model. On the basis of the classification of the roughness of different materials and in conjunction with probability density distribution, we adopted a non-uniform sampling method to improve the split-ray collection method in the spatial distribution of scattering energy in the reverse ray tracing algorithm. By conducting the typical Monte Carlo simulation of a simple dihedron and comparing the theoretical calculation results, we tested and verified the correctness of the proposed method. We analyzed the difference between the primary and secondary scattering results of the target LRCS with different conditions. The calculation results show that for rough materials, if only primary scattering is considered in a plurality of detection directions, a large calculation error will occur, so the influence of the secondary scattering must be considered; and the contribution of the diffuse reflection component to the secondary scattering is more significant. Finally, we compared the secondary scattering of different rough materials to describe the circumstances of secondary scattering in which diffuse reflection conditions need to be considered. In addition, the inverse Monte Carlo method used in this paper to calculate the multiple scattering of the LRCS of the target can effectively improve the calculation speed of the acquisition processing. This improves the reliability of the calculation results while taking into account the estimated speed.