Optimum corner reflectors design

A general class of corner reflectors with high aperture efficiency referred to as self-illuminating corner reflectors, is introduced whose coherent interaction with their surrounding terrain is minimized and their total surface area is two-thirds of that of a trihedral corner reflector having the same maximum RCS. Analysis based on geometrical optics and a new numerical solution based on near-field physical optics for the RCS of two simple self-illuminating corner reflectors are presented and compared with backscatter measurements. Also the panel geometry for an optimum corner reflector which has the shortest edge length among polygonal self-illuminating corner reflectors is obtained. High aperture efficiency is achieved at the expense of azimuth and elevation beamwidth. It is shown that the 1-dB RCS beamwidths of the optimal corner reflectors, both in azimuth and elevation directions, are about 16°, which is sufficient for most practical applications. RCS measurements of corner reflectors in the presence of a ground plane show that the RCS of self-illuminating corner reflectors are less affected by the coherent ground interaction.