Incremental Propagation Procedure for Calculating Scattered Fields from Arbitrary Conductors

A computationally efficient method is described for calculating the scattered fields from conducting bodies of arbitrary shape. The process is non-iterative and incrementally propagates a planar field distribution through the conductor via spectral decomposition of the wave, inserting the necessary boundary conditions as required. Integration is performed numerically using Fast Fourier Transform routines. The technique is compared with two analytic methods for calculating the scattered fields from a perfectly conducting half plane and then from a perfectly conducting cylinder. A generalisation of the method to deal with scattering off bodies composed of any dielectric material is discussed.