Extended boundary condition method for scattering and emission from natural surfaces modeled by fractals

The extended boundary condition method with the Weierstrass-Mandelbrot fractal function (WM-EBCM) has been recently employed to model and solve the problem of electromagnetic scattering from natural surfaces. In this paper we first of all show, on the basis of theoretical considerations and of numerical examples, that this method can be used also for the evaluation of electromagnetic emission from natural surfaces. In addition, a small roughness approximation of the WM-EBCM solution is presented to highlight the connection between EBCM and SPM, and to avoid matrix ill-conditioning in scattering problems. Achieved results show that the zero-order scattered field is the (deterministic) field reflected by the mean plane, and that the first-order (random) scattered field is directly proportional to surface roughness. Validity limits of the approximated method are discussed and verified by studying the scattered field behavior at different surface roughness conditions.