Abstract:

Monostatic, backscattered data from a finite, ribbed cylinder are shown. These data from a nonspherical scatterer exhibit a great deal of angular dependence. This angular dependence complicates the design of a classifier which uses templates to test the similarity of a test signal with the known scatterer. The scattering data have previously been shown to primarily consist of components generated by specular reflection, elastic waves, and Bloch waves. The angular dependence of this data set is shown to be due to fading of each component from a physical mechanism, as well as the changing interference of the various components as their relative timing changes. The separation of the echoes into components is shown to decrease the angular dependence. Finally, it is shown that a modest number of templates can be derived from the angular-dependent components through the use of the Karhunen--Loeve transformation and the assumption of equal statistical weighting of each aspect angle. The ka range considered extends from approximately 3 to 10. [Work supported by ONR.]