A Full Wave Three Dimensional Analysis of Forest Remote Sensing Using VHF Electromagnetic Wave

Abstract

Abstract—A forest made of an infinite biperiodic array of trees over a lossy ground, is illuminated by a linearly polarized electromagnetic plane wave in the range of 20 to 90 MHz. Due to the ratio of the wavelength to the array period, only the specular mode is propagative. Therefore, a reflection coefficient is computed and not a backscattering coefficient. It is obtained by means of a full wave approach, based on an integral representation of the electric field. This approach takes into account all possible interactions between each component of the medium as well as ground penetration and provides full information on the phase of the scattered field. Two models of the forest are developed, the two layers one where trees are separated and the four layers one whee the canopy is replaced by an equivalent homogeneous medium. The low frequency (VHF) used here make this homogenization possible and allows one to consider trees with simple shape, the wave being