Some Results from a Statistical Scattering Experiment

The complex environments in which many electromagnetic systems must operate (consider the antenna arrangements found on typical navy ships) make their analysis in any rigorous sense largely impractical. Yet it is important that the perturbing effect of such environments be somehow accounted for in evaluating system performance. The purpose of this paper is to present some results from a statistical experiment conducted in the time domain to measure the effects caused by N nearby identical scatterers on the receiving properties of a given antenna. It is found that the variance of the peak antenna current at first increases, and then decreases as N increases, with the environment changing from a discrete to an essentially continium or medium-like behavior. This mean peak current, on the other hand, decreases monotonically with increasing N.