A ray tracing algorithm for multiple reflections by flat plates, and multiple diffractions by straight wedges and vertexes

The description of the electromagnetic field in terms of rays has been extensively and effectively used for modeling complex environments at high frequencies. Such description is typically based on the geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD) (J. B. Keller, J. Opt. Soc. Am., Vol. 52, No. 2, 116-130, 1962) and its uniform version (UTD) (R. G. Kouyoumjian and P. H. Pathak, Proc. IEEE, Vol. 62, No. 11, 1448-1461, 1974). Both GTD and UTD have been successfully applied to a variety of practical applications: for the prediction of the radar cross section (RCS) of complex targets, for the computation of the radiation characteristics of antennas in their operating environments (on board of aircraft, ships, satellites), etc. GTD and UTD describe the field in terms of ray contributions by using simple analytic expressions involving the geometrical parameters of the ray and the local shape of the scattering object at the reflection/diffraction point.