PO analysis of depolarizing trihedral corners

Abstract

In this paper, a physical optics (PO) model to analyze a loaded trihedral corner reflector (TCR) is developed and applied to predict the backscattering by a depolarizing TCR. Such a reflector, proposed by Jull and Michelson (1995), is obtained from the conventional triangular one by loading one of its interior faces with ad hoc chosen rectangular corrugations parallel to the z-axis. By generalizing the model developed in Corona et al. (1995, 1996), an anisotropic impedance boundary condition (IBC) is introduced to take into account the properties of such a corrugated surface. The proposed PO method uses the geometrical optics (GO) to evaluate the illuminating electric field related to the direct, singly and doubly reflected rays incident on each face and to determine in analytic form the shape of the corresponding lighted patches. Further improvements in the EM model can be introduced by augmenting PO calculation with contribution due to the diffraction from the edges.