Scattering Prediction of Target Above Layered Rough Surface Based on Time-Domain Ray Tracing Modeling

In the past, most of the transient electromagnetic (EM) analyses focused on the scattering from the target. The transient scattering from rough surface was rarely studied, especially for the layered rough surface. When the target is above the rough surface, it needs to solve the composite transient scattering from the rough surface and the target above it. In this article, we mainly focus on the time-domain (TD) analysis for transient scattering from the target and layered rough surface based on time-domain ray tracing (TDRT) modeling. Applying geometrical optics (GO), the multiple bounces of the transient EM waves between layered rough surfaces and target are traced to obtain the incident field of the irradiated surfaces. Then considering the particularity of the layered rough surface, we modify TD Gordon integral and reduce the TD physical optics (TDPO) integral to closed-form expressions to improve the computing efficiency. To demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed algorithm, the transient scattering simulations of the composite model involving target and layered rough surface are compared with frequency-domain ray tracing (FDRT) with inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT), as well as the results obtained by the multilevel fast multipole algorithm (MLFMA) of FEKO in conjunction with IFFT (IFFT-MLFMA). The characteristics of transient scattering from the composite model are further studied to show the physical phenomenon of scattering mechanisms. Specifically, the transient scattering from the composite model for different parameters is simulated for sensitivity investigation of the transient scattering to the variations in the related parameters.