Numerical study of detection of a buried object under a single random rough surface with angular correlation function

The detection of an object buried under a random rough surface has important applications. The bistatic scattering intensity of the rough surface can be comparable to that of the object making it difficult to detect the buried object. The authors study the angular correlation functions (ACF) of scattering. They first study ACF of rough surface scattering. It is shown that a memory line is still exhibited for a single random rough surface of moderate extent based on frequency average. If the incident and scattered angles are away from the memory line of rough surface scattering, then the ACF of rough surface scattering is small. For the problem of buried object under a rough surface, numerical simulations indicate that even when the ratio of scattered intensities with and without the buried object is close to unity, the corresponding ratio of ACF can be 15 dB. Thus, using ACF is superior to using intensities in the detection of buried object.