A novel method to analyze electromagnetic scattering of complex objects

It is proposed to use the finite-difference time-domain (FD-TD) method for computing electromagnetic scattering by arbitrary-shaped complex metal and dielectric objects excited by an external plane wave. The method is first used to determine equivalent electric or magnetic currents tangential to a virtual surface surrounding the scatterer of interest. The computed near-field equivalent currents are then transformed to derive the far-field scattering pattern and the radar cross section. Current and field predictions obtained by the FD-TD method are shown to be within 2.5% of the values obtained by the method of moments for every point including shadow regions.