Temporal and spatial characteristics of I-band multipath propagation over the sea

The study of forward scatter from the sea surface is of importance in several applications of radar operated at low elevation angles over the sea, in which severe fading can occur due to multipath propagation. Extensive work has been done on the tracking accuracy against low flying targets, of a radar near a rough surface, to predict the angular accuracy of the radar measurement on what is assumed to be a point target. This work treats only the single point amplitude statistics of the multipath phenomena although the derivation of the statistics involves consideration of a glistening surface. It should be noted that temporal or spatial elements are not included in the model. In order to investigate the temporal and spatial multipath effects a programme of full scale measurements, using cliff-top radars is underway, allowing the phenomenon of forward scattering to be investigated in a relatively controlled manner. The latest results of the spatial decorrelation in the horizontal and vertical directions are given