Experimental research on bistatic scattering characteristics of surface discontinuous character

The bistatic and multi-azimuth scattering characteristics of single-straight-gap and single-straight-step plates are studied by a series of radar cross section (RCS) testing which is based on a novel experimental method for the bistatic RCS of surface discontinuous characters. For the bistatic RCS curves of surface discontinuous characters, such characteristics as resemblance, symmetry and translation are presented and the rules of different surface discontinuous characters are analyzed. The results show that different bistatic angle RCS curves are similar to the corresponding monostatic RCS curves, and that different surface discontinuous characters have different influences on RCS magnitude. If the testing method and plates are symmetrical, then bistatic and monostatic RCS are symmetrical with regard to curve peak azimuth, while the RCS curve symmetry of a gap plate is better than that of a step plate because of the gap plate symmetry. Bistatic curves are translated more obviously with the increase of bistatic angle and the translation magnitude is half that of the bistatic angle. The translated direction is pointing to the receiver antennas from the transmitter antennas. The peak of RCS curves is located on the centerline of the angle between the transmitter and receiver antennas.