Rigorous electromagnetic modeling of targets concealed in tree foliage

A method of moment (MoM) analysis is developed for electromagnetic scattering from a generalized perfectly conducting target in the near field of a tree trunk in a layered medium environment. In this analysis, the tree trunk is modeled as a dielectric body of revolution (BoR) and the layered medium electrical properties can be lossy and dispersive, of interest for simulating real soil. The MoM analysis employs the layered medium Green's function, which is evaluated efficiently via the method of complex images. To simplify the analysis, the conducting target is considered to be a flat plate. To rigorously account for the interaction between these disparate targets, the conducting target and tree trunk are modeled separately, with interactions handled via an efficient iterative procedure. In addition to yielding accurate results, this procedure has memory and run-time requirements that are significantly less than required of a straightforward brute force MoM approach. This latter issue is particularly important for the problem of interest here, since the tree trunk and conducting target are generally electrically large and because this work is ultimately directed towards modeling conducting targets in the near field of multiple tree trunks (that is, simulating targets concealed in tree foliage).