A new approach to the analysis of rough surface scattering

A novel approach to the problem of scattering by a randomly rough surface is developed based on combining normalization and the method of smoothing. Previous uses of smoothing have been forced to assume small surface heights in order to guarantee the dominance of the scattered field by its average or specular part. The term that causes the average scattered field to be so sensitive to the height is identified, and is normalized out of the basic integral equation. Smoothing is then applied to the normalized integral equation with a subsequent reintroduction of the normalizing factor after smoothing. The results are shown to extend beyond existing approximations, and they contain none of the divergent integral behavior that has recently been observed with a pure second order iterative approximation. An examination of the conditions under which the technique provides very accurate results shows that it is essentially an extension of the so-called composite surface scattering model