Heifetz, A | Search NASA

DOE OSTI2011

Microwave remote sensing of ionized air.

We present observations of microwave scattering from ambient room air ionized with a negative ion generator. The frequency dependence of the radar cross section of ionized air was measured from 26.5 to 40 GHz (Ka-band) in a bistatic mode with an Agilent PNA-X series (model N5245A) vector network analyzer. A detailed calibration scheme is provided to minimize the effect of the stray background field and system frequency response on the target reflection. The feasibility of detecting the microwave reflection from ionized air portends many potential applications such as remote sensing of atmospheric ionization and remote detection of radioactive ionization of air.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE OSTI2011

An efficient iterative algorithm for computation of scattering from dielectric objects.

We have developed an efficient iterative algorithm for electromagnetic scattering of arbitrary but relatively smooth dielectric objects. The algorithm iteratively adapts the equivalent surface currents until the electromagnetic fields inside and outside the dielectric objects match the boundary conditions. Theoretical convergence is analyzed for two examples that solve scattering of plane waves incident upon air/dielectric slabs of semi-infinite and finite thicknesses. We applied the iterative algorithm for simulation of sinusoidally-perturbed dielectric slab on one side and the method converged for such unsmooth surfaces. We next simulated the shift in radiation pattern of a 6-inch dielectric lens for different offsets of the feed antenna on the focal plane. The result is compared to that of the Geometrical Optics (GO).

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗