Measurement of normalised radar crosssection of polystyrene foam at 60 GHz

The backscattering measurement of a rectangular solid volume of polystyrene foam (width: 0.92 m; height: 0.9 m; depth: 1.82 m) carried out at frequencies ranging from 59 to 60 GHz is described with horizontal polarisation for both transmission and reception antennas. The volume fraction of polystyrene in the measured material is about 0.01. The normalised radar cross-section of the measured polystyrene foam sample is estimated as 2.9 × 10^-3(±3 × 10^-4) m²/m³ by using the range-resolved data of the backscattered power arising from inside of the polystyrene foam volume. When using polystyrene foam as a support for radar targets in radar measurements, this result is considered useful for quantitatively estimating the intensity of the unwanted backscattered waves due to the foam.