Edge wave diffraction for flat plates

The tip excited edge wave and the associated interactions between the two adjacent corners of a flat plate are outlined using a more complete depiction of the corner effect. Radar cross section (RCS) calculations and time domain mechanism extraction are used to illustrate the edge wave contributions to the backscatter by knife-edged perfectly conducting plates. The corner diffraction is represented as the truncation effect of the physical optics and nonuniform component of the currents on the plate. Improvement has been observed in lower levels of the RCS, e.g., at off principal plane observation of flat plates, as illustrated by the backscattering of a 2 lambda square plate.<>