Experimental Results of Circular Polarization and Scattering Matrix Measurements

摘要

The report contains a description of the results of experiments performed at the RAT SCAT Site, a ground plane radar cross section range, to examine the operational feasibility of measuring arbitrary targets with circular polarization and, in addition, measuring linear scattering matrices. A calibration procedure compatible with the RAT SCAT facility is presented. Elliptical polarization was used to facilitate the establishment of circular polarization at the target point. Experimental data is presented on the magnitude of polarization degradation as a function of target size and time. Relative phase measurements, along with the necessary amplitude measurements, were used to determine the linear scattering matrix of a complex target. Finally, two annotated schemes compatible with present RAT SCAT equipment for obtaining the linear scattering matrix are described. (Author)