RCS Analysis on Low-Altitude Chaff Clouds Above Sea Surface
Wenjing Zheng, Zi He, Dazhi Ding, Fan Ding, Jihong Gu
Abstract
It is instructive to exploit the coupling effect between the chaff clouds and the sea surface, so that the scattering mechanism of chaff clouds above the surface can be better understood. An EM model for low-altitude chaff clouds above the sea surface is proposed to analyze the scattering contributions of the EM waves between the chaff clouds and the surface. For high-density chaff elements, their scattering properties can be calculated quickly and accurately by the vector radiative transfer (VRT). During the process, Monte Carlo solver is used to simulate the energy change of photons and the coupling effect among chaffs. Meanwhile, the advanced integral equation model (AIEM) is applied to calculate the electromagnetic scattering energy of the sea. Moreover, the coupling effect between the chaff clouds and the sea is taken into account by the four-path method. Numerical results indicate that the validity of the VRT method can be verified by the FEKO. In addition, the dynamic coupling of radar cross-section (RCS) variation is simulated, and the scattering characteristics of chaff clouds under different sea states and heights are analyzed to predict the scattering coefficients. Moreover, for chaff clouds with different spatial distributions, the scattering characteristics are analyzed to provide an effective strategy for practical applications.