Simulations Of Polarization Dependent Contrast During The Diurnal Heating Cycle For Passive Millimeter-Wave Imagery

Passive millimeter-wave (mmW) sensors are especially suited to persistent surveillance applications due to their ability to operate during day/night conditions and through transient atmospheric obscurants such as clouds, rain and fog. The contrast of targets will change throughout a diurnal heating cycle and this change will be polarization dependent. Simulations are presented from a ray tracing program developed for the mmW regime that has been modified to account for polarization information. Results are shown demonstrating periods during the day when the contrast of certain targets drop to zero for a linear polarization state while the orthogonal state still maintains a high contrast.