The angular correlation function of waves scattered from randomly distributed cylinders

The correlation effect of waves scattered from random media has attracted considerable interest in recent years. In particular, the angular correlation function (ACF) of waves scattered from rough surfaces and volumes has been studied extensively, and the characteristics of the angular memory effect (AME), which was first described by Feng et al. [1988], were reported for different surface conditions. Applications of AME, including height profiling in interferometric synthetic aperture radar (INSAR) and detection of buried objects, have been proposed and studied by researchers using numerical and experimental techniques. However, most of the recent studies of AME have been confined to the area of waves scattered from rough surfaces. In this paper we will investigate the angular memory signature of volume scatterers. Numerical and experimental studies on the ACF of waves scattered from randomly distributed cylinders are presented at millimeter-wave frequencies (80–105 GHz). It has been found that the angular width of ACF for volume scattering is narrower and shorter than that for random rough surfaces.