Electromagnetic scattering from metallic disc: numerical analysis and experimental validation

Abstract

This work focuses on experimental validation of a numerical approach for prediction of radar cross section (RCS) of an infinitely thin perfectly conducting disc. The approach uses an exact solution of Maxwell’s equation, given by Meixner and Andrejewski in 1950 in terms of vector wave functions in the oblate spheroidal coordinate system. The disc is an important canonical target employed for calibration of radar devices. Numerical simulation of electromagnetic scattering from a disc is, however, difficult because of the presence of the edge which makes approximate solutions obtained with standard methods, like physical optics, insufficiently accurate. The solution by Meixner exactly accounts for the edge effects but assumes an idealized physical model of the scatterer (infinitely thin, perfectly conducting) and is mathematically complicated. That is why a comparison with experimental results is particularly important in this case.