Scattering from multiple objects buried beneath two-dimensional random rough surface using the steepest descent fast multipole method

Generalized formulations are presented to analyze the electric field scattered from multiple penetrable shallow objects buried beneath two-dimensional random rough surfaces. These objects could have different materials, shapes, or orientations. In addition, their separation distance may range from a fraction of a wavelength to several wavelengths. The fast algorithm, steepest descent fast multipole method (SDFMM), is used to compute the unknown electric and magnetic surface currents on the rough ground surface and on the buried objects. Parametric investigations are presented to study the effect of the objects proximity, orientations, materials, shapes, the incident waves polarization, and the ground roughness on the scattered fields. A significant interference is observed between the objects when they are separated by less than one free space wavelength. Even when the clutter due to the rough ground is removed, the return from the second object, can be dominating causing a possible false alarm in detecting the target. The results show that the distortion in target signature significantly increases with the increase of both the proximity to a clutter item and the ground roughness.