OPTIMAL POLARIZATION FOR SCATTERING FROM A CIRCULAR CYLINDER

Abstract

A circular cylinder is a simple model for some objects in our surroundings such as road-side utility poles. The determination of size and material properties of these objects which may be modeled by the circular cylinder are objective of this work. For this purpose, a circular cylinder is illuminated by two orthogonally polarized antennas. These antennas radiate vertical and horizontal linearly polarized waves which are incident on the surface of the circular cylinder. The incidence of vertically polarized plane wave results in both vertical and horizontal components of scattered wave. Similarly, incidence of horizontally polarized plane wave results in both verti- cal and horizontal components of scattered wave. An arbitrary polarization can be synthesized using a linear combination of vertical and horizontal polarizations. Total back-scattered power resulting from the incidence of an arbitrary polarized wave is calculated. The polarization of the incident wave is varied over all possible polariza- tions on Poincar e sphere and the backscattered power is calculated for each point on the Poincar e sphere. The optimal polarization, for which the back-scattered power is maximum, is recorded. Variation of optimal polarization for variations in cylinder size and material properties are studied. A catalogue can be formed using numerical data of optimal polarization and maximum received power for the determination of size and material properties of the cylinder. And, numerical data measured from the experimental setup can be compared with simulation data using the catalogue to determine of size and material properties of the circular cylinder.