Polyhedral Corner Reflectors Multi-Domain Joint Characterization With Fully Polarimetric Radar

Polyhedral corner reflectors, comprising multiple identical trihedral corner reflectors, represent significant passive interference sources in the radar field. Representative types include the octahedron triangular trihedral corner reflector (OTTCR) and the icosahedron triangular trihedral corner reflector (ITTCR). However, their polarimetric scattering mechanisms are unclear and remain inadequately characterized. This work conducts a comprehensive analysis of high-dimensional scattering characteristics in polyhedral corner reflectors via a multi-domain joint characterization approach. The main contributions are threefold. First, a general co-polarization correlation pattern interpretation tool is developed to explore and utilize target scattering diversity in high-dimensional space. Correlation fluctuation and maximum Gaussian curvature are proposed to quantitatively characterize global statistical and local geometric properties of the general co-polarization correlation pattern, respectively. Second, quantitative investigations are conducted to disclose the variation law of polyhedral corner reflectors’ high-dimensional scattering mechanisms in terms of different radar bands, corner reflector sizes, and sea states with electromagnetic computation data. Finally, the anechoic chamber and field experiments on polyhedral corner reflectors in different bands are conducted. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed polyhedral corner reflectors multi-domain joint characterization approach with competitive performance in qualitative and quantitative aspects.