Radar Backscatter from a Vegetation Layer with Rough Ground Boundary

Abstract

The problem of radar backscattering from a vegetation layer with a smooth or a rough ground boundary is formulated by a Monte Carlo method. The vegetation layer is assumed to contain a mixture of randomly distributed dielectric discs and thin prolate ellipsoids whose phase matrices are known and whose distributions of angular orientations can be prescribed independently. The ground boundary is modelled by a Fresnel reflection coefficient for a plane lossy surface or a Kirchhoff lossy surface as the case may be. Results from the Monte Carlo simulations are compared with calculations of a matrix-doubling method by [9], and also with measurements from fields of wheat, soyabean, milo and corn [7,20]. The results indicate that the Monte Cario method presented in this paper can give a good fit with experimental data, using parameters which are believed to be reasonable.