Modeling Microwave Scattering From Rough Sea Ice Surfaces

Abstract

In this paper, COMSOL Multiphysics® was used to simulate the microwave scattering from the rough sea ice surface. A nonperiodic model and a periodic model were built. The nonperiodic model considers the rough surface of finite length and introduces a tapered incident wave. In this model, the strategy of total and scattered-field decomposition (TSFD) was used to formulate the finite-element method (FEM). The computational area was split into a scattered-field region and a total-field region so that the incident wave can be impressed closer to the rough sea ice surface. The periodic model considers the periodic rough surface by introducing Floquet periodic boundary conditions. The incident wave is excited by the port boundary condition so this model is based on the total-field formulation. The two models were tested to simulate the radar cross section (RCS) of scattering from sea ice surfaces at C band (frequency 5.4GHz). The results were compared with the Small Perturbation Method (SPM) and good agreements were achieved.