Bistatic Radar Cross Section (RCS) Characterization of Complex Objects

This research addresses some phenomenological aspects of bistatic scattering from a complex object with an emphasis on specular, shadowing, dihedral, and cavity effects. Five targets are investigated for their simplicity and ability to highlight certain scattering phenomena. Direct measurements of scattered electromagnetic energy and simulation data is gathered for a frequency bandwidth of 6-18 GHz. Both ray tracing and scattering center approaches are used to describe the bistatic mechanisms. An appraisal of the effectiveness and utility of the monostatic-to-bistatic equivalence theorems (Kell\u27s and Crispin\u27s) and several commercial scattering prediction codes is also accomplished. Simulation data is generated from two different electromagnetic scattering prediction codes, Xpatch and FISC. Xpatch is a physical optics (PO) based code while FISC is a more rigorous method of moments (MOM) based tool. This data is utilized to achieve three objectives: (1) study Kell\u27s and Crispin\u27s monostatic-to-bistatic equivalence theorems (MBET) for a complex object through theoretical derivations and comparison of measured and simulated data sets, (2) evaluate the performance of Xpatch and FISC through direct comparisons to measured data, and (3) gain insight into the bistatic scattering phenomenology while extracting appropriate rules-of-thumb for bistatic scattering predictions. These rules of thumb are proposed to help guide the reader in evaluating the bistatic RCS of complex shapes in general