The selection of artificial corner reflectors based on RCS analysis

Artificial corner reflectors (ACRs) are widely applicable in monitoring terrain change via interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) remote sensing techniques. Many different types are available. The choice of the most appropriate ones has recently attracted scholarly attentions. Based on physical optics methods, via calculating the radar cross section (RCS) values (the higher the value, the better the detectability), the current study tested three ACRs, i.e., triangular pyramidal, rectangular pyramidal and square trihedral ACRs. Our calculation suggests that the square trihedral ACR produces the largest RCS but least tolerance towards incident radar ray’s deviation from optimal angle. The triangular pyramidal trihedral ACR is the most geometrically stable ACR, and has the highest tolerance towards incident radar ray’s deviation. Its RCS values, however, are the least of the three. Due to the high cost of deploying ACRs in the fields, the physical optics method seems to provide a viable way to choose appropriate ACRs.