Radar signatures of indoor clutter for through-The-wall radar applications

In through-The-wall radar (TTWR) applications, scattering by indoor clutter elements can greatly confound the detection of humans. This paper analyzes the spectral and azimuthal scattering characteristics of various types of individual furniture targets and compares these to humans. Radar cross section (RCS) values of furniture and humans are obtained using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) technique over the 1-5 GHz frequency range and the 0-360 azimuth angle range for both co- and cross-polarized scattering. In the case of furniture, RCS responses show to the highest returns when viewing the planar surfaces of the clutter objects. Objects consisting primarily of smaller planar surfaces with more complex geometrical features showed a more uniform response with no preferred orientation showing a larger response. Human RCS produced from the biological models showed a more constant RCS when viewing the co-polarized response, where the back produced the highest response due to the more planar surface. The cross-polarized response was more varied providing for a wider range of RCS values.