RFC Review

Radio Science, Volume ???
, Number , Pages 121,

Refractivity Estimation from Sea Clutter: An invited
Review
Ali Karimian,
1
Caglar Yardim,
1
Peter Gerstoft,
1
William S. Hodgkiss,
1
Amalia E. Barrios
2
Non-standard radio wave propagation in the atmosphere is caused by anomalous
changes of the atmospheric refractivity index. In recent years, refractivity from clutter
(RFC) has been an active eld of research to complement traditional ways of measuring
the refractivity prole in maritime environments which rely on direct sensing of the
environmental parameters. Higher temporal and spatial resolution of the refractivity
prole, together with a lower cost and convenience of operations have been the promising
factors that brought RFC under consideration. Presented is an overview of the basic
concepts, research and achievements in the eld of RFC. Topics that require more
attention in future studies also are discussed.
1. Introduction
Refractivity From Clutter (RFC) techniques es-
timate the lower atmospheric refractivity structure
surrounding a radar using its sea surface reected
clutter signal. The knowledge of the refractivity
structure enables radar operators to compensate for
non-standard atmospheric eects, or at least be
aware of the radar limitations in specic locations.
In the last decade, there has been interest in esti-
mation of the environmental refractivity prole us-
ing the radar backscattered signals. RFC can be de-
scribed as a fusion of two disciplines [Rogers et al.,
2000; Gerstoft et al., 2003b; Vasudevan et al., 2007]:
numerical methods for ecient electromagnetic wave
propagation modeling and estimation theory.
Variations in the vertical refractivity prole can re-
sult in entrapment of the electromagnetic waves, cre-
ating lower atmospheric ducts. Ocean ducts are com-
mon phenomena that result in signicant variations
in the maximum operational radar range, creation of
radar fades where the radar performance is reduced,
and increased sea clutter [Skolnik, 2008]. Therefore,
they greatly alter the target detection performance
1
Marine Physical Laboratory, Scripps Inst. of
Oceanography, University of California, San Diego,
California, USA.
2
Atmospheric Propagation Branch, Space and Naval
Warfare Systems Center, San Diego, California, USA.
Copyright 2012 by the American Geophysical Union.
0048-6604/12/$11.00
at low altitudes [Anderson, 1995], and result in sig-
nicant height error for 3D radars.
RFC techniques nd the prole associated with
the best modeled clutter match to the observed clut-
ter power. RFC has the advantage of temporal and
spatial tracking of the refractivity prole in a dynam-
ically changing environment.
Atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity
aect the refractivity structure, and thus aect the
radar propagation conditions. The vertical gradient
of the refractivity prole determines the curvature
of radar rays [Doviak and Zrnic, 1993]. Therefore,
radar returns can be used to infer the gradient of re-
fractivity structure near the ground [Park and Fabry,
2011].
Atmospheric ducts are more common in hot and
humid regions of the world. The Persian Gulf, the
Mediterranean and California coasts are examples of
such regions with common formation of a ducting
layer above the sea surface [Yardim et al., 2009]. Sur-
face based ducts appear on an annual average almost
25% of the time o the coast of South California and
50% in the Persian Gulf [Patterson, 1992]. While
surface-based ducts appear less common than evap-
oration ducts, their eect is more prominent on the
radar return [Skolnik, 2008]. They often manifest
themselves in a radar plan position indicator (PPI)
as clutter rings, see Fig. 1d, or height errors in 3D
radars. The height error is due to the trapping of the
lowest elevation beams near the surface instead of re-
fracting upward as would be expected in a standard
atmosphere.
1
2 KARIMIAN ET AL.: RFC REVIEW
-250!
-200!
-150!
-100!
-50!
0!
50!
100!
150!
200!
250!
-250!
-200!
-150!
-100!
-50!
0!
50!
100!
150!
200!
250!
km
-200 -100 0 100 200!
-200 -100 0 100 200!
km km
(a)!
(b)!
(c)! (d)!
(dB)! (dB)!
(dB)!
Figure 1. Propagation diagram of a (a) weak evaporation duct, (b) surface-based duct (high inten-
sity: bright). Radar PPI screen showing clutter map (dB) during the 1998 SPANDAR experiment
resulting from a (c) weak evaporation duct, (d) surface-based duct.
Fig. 1b shows that a surface-based duct increases
the radar range signicantly inside the duct with re-
spect to a weak evaporation duct (close to the stan-
dard atmosphere) by trapping the radar waves just
above the ocean surface. Note that the electromag-
netic energy is trapped inside the strong surface-
based duct which results in an increase in the in-
teraction of the electromagnetic waves with the sea
surface. Fig. 1(c,d) demonstrates the eect of atmo-
spheric ducts on the radar clutter. The strong duct-
ing case has distinct clutter rings around the radar.
This complex clutter structure enables RFC to esti-
mate the atmospheric conditions from the radar re-
turns.
Eorts by Reilly and Dockery [1990] and Pappert
et al. [1992] to calculate sea reections in ducting
conditions inspired researchers to nd the environ-
mental refractivity prole from radar measurements,
as opposed to the traditional way of using bulk sensor
measurements. The atmospheric refractivity prole
is often measured by direct sensing of the environ-
ment. Rocketsondes and radiosondes typically are
used for sampling of the atmospheric boundary layer
[Rowland et al., 1996], although they have limita-
tions regarding mechanical issues and surface condi-
tions [Helvey, 1983; Mentes and Kaymaz , 2007]. For
characterization of the surface layer, bulk param-
eters such as pressure, air and sea surface temper-
ature, humidity, and wind speed are measured at a
single height, usually with sensors placed on a buoy
or platform on the sea surface. These in-situ mea-
surements are then used as inputs to thermodynamic
bulk models to estimate the near-surface vertical
refractivity prole using MoninObukhov similarity
theory [Jeske, 1973; Fairall et al., 1996; Frederickson
et al., 2000b].
Initial remote sensing studies in the radar
[Richter, 1995; Rogers, 1997] and climatology [Haack
and Burk, 2001] communities have been directed to-
ward a better estimation of the refractivity prole
in the lower atmosphere, less than 500 m above the
sea surface. Hitney [1992] demonstrated the ca-
pability to assess the base height of the trapping
layer from measurements of UHF signal strengths.
Anderson [1994] inferred vertical refractivity of the
lower atmosphere based on ground-based measure-
ments of global positioning system (GPS) signals,
followed by Lowry et al. [2002]; Lin et al. [2011].
KARIMIAN ET AL.: RFC REVIEW 3
Boyer et al. [1996] estimated refractivity from radio
measurements with diversity in frequency and height.
Rogers [1997] used VHF/ UHF measurements from
the VOCAR 1993 experiment to invert for a three pa-
rameter (base height, M decit and duct thickness)
surface duct model. Krolik and Tabrikian [1997] used
a maximum a posteriori (MAP) approach for inver-
sions. They modeled the environment with a three
element vector: two elements to describe the vertical
structure and one to describe the range dependency
of the prole. They later combined prior statistics
of refractivity with point-to-point microwave propa-
gation measurements to infer refractivity [Tabrikian
and Krolik, 1999].
Von Engeln et al. [2003] used low earth orbit
GPS satellites to analyze the occurrence frequency
and variation of land and sea ducts on a global
scale, during a 10 day period in May 2001. LIDAR
[Wandinger, 2005; Willitsford and Philbrick, 2005]
has also been used to measure the vertical refractiv-
ity prole. However, its performance is limited by
the background noise (e.g. clouds) [Vasudevan et al.,
2007].
Weather radars and refractivity retrieval algo-
rithms have been used to estimate moisture elds
with high temporal and spatial resolution [Fabry
et al., 1997; Weckwerth et al., 2005; Roberts et al.,
2008] with application in understanding thunder-
storm initiation [Wilson and Roberts, 2006; Waki-
moto and Murphy, 2009].
RFC techniques use the radar return signals to es-
timate the ambient environment refractivity prole.
There has been strong correlation between the re-
trieved refractivity prole using an S-band radar and
in-situ measurements by instrumented aircrafts or ra-
diosondes [Rogers et al., 2000; Gerstoft et al., 2003b;
Weckwerth et al., 2005]. RFC techniques make track-
ing of spatial and temporal changes in the environ-
ment possible [Vasudevan et al., 2007; Yardim et al.,
2008; Douvenot et al., 2010]. RFC inversions of the
environmental prole have been reported at frequen-
cies as low as VHF [Rogers, 1997], and as high as
5.6 GHz [Barrios, 2004].
The development of RFC initially was inspired by
the use of inverse methods in ocean acoustics which
also is based on propagating signals in a waveguide.
For a review of numerical modeling of the ocean
waveguide see [Jensen et al., 2011]. For an introduc-
tion to the ocean acoustic inverse problem see [Dosso
and Dettmer, 2011] and for sequential inverse meth-
ods in ocean acoustics see [Yardim et al., 2011].
The remainder of this paper is organized as fol-
lows: Section 2 introduces the marine ducts and their
simplied mathematical models. Section 3 summa-
rizes the clutter models used in previous studies and
wave propagation approximations that model radio
wave propagation eciently. Section 4 summarizes
the RFC research and inversion methods that have
been used to infer the environmental refractivity pa-
rameters. Section 5 discusses the shortcomings of the
current research and areas that require more atten-
tion in the future.
2. Marine ducts
One of the rst reports of abnormal performance
of radar systems in maritime environments was dur-
ing World War II where British radars on the north-
west coast of India commonly observed the coast of
the Arabian peninsula 2700 km apart under monsoon
conditions [Kerr, 1951]. Marine ducts are the re-
sult of heat transfer, moisture and the momentum of
changes in the atmosphere [Gossard, 1981] and en-
tail three general classes: evaporation, surface-based
and elevated ducts.
(a)!
h
d
(b)!
h
1
h
2
m
1
m
2
(d)!
h
1
h
2
m
1
m
2
(c)!
h
d
m
1
h
2
h
1
m
2
M-units! M-units!
Figure 2. Parameters of simplied duct geometries:
(a) evaporation duct, (b) surface-based duct, (c) surface-
based duct with an evaporation layer, and (d) elevated
duct.
These ducts are characterized by a range and
height dependent environmental refractivity index.
Although a refractivity prole has a complex struc-
ture in nature, it can be approximated by a bilin-
ear or trilinear function for surface-based ducts and
by an exponential function for evaporation ducts in
modeling wave propagation [Dougherty and Hart,
1979; Rogers, 1996; Gerstoft et al., 2003b].
The simplied atmospheric duct geometries used
in most RFC works are shown in Fig. 2. The mod-
ied refractive index M is dened as the part per
million deviation of the refractive index from that of
a vaccum:
M(z) 10
6
= n(z) 1 +z/r
e
, (1)
which maps the refractivity index n at height z to
a attened earth approximation with earth radius
r
e
= 6370 km. The advantage of working with the
modied refractive index is to transform a spher-
ical propagation problem into a planar one. This
transformation maps a spherically stratied medium
over a spherical earth to a planar stratied medium
above a at earth. This transformation results in less
than 1% error for ranges of less than r
e
/3, indepen-
dent of the wavelength [Pekeris, 1946]. However, this
transformation to compute the heightgain function
breaks down in centimeter wavelengths and elevation
of more than 300 m. The error gets worse with in-
creasing frequency [Pekeris, 1946].
2.1. Evaporation ducts
Existence of evaporation ducts was rst suggested
by Katzin et al. [1947]. Because of the diculties
in directly measuring the evaporation duct, various
bulk models have been used to estimate the near-
surface refractivity prole for several decades [Jeske,
1973; Liu et al., 1979; Paulus, 1985; Babin et al.,
1997]. An evaporation duct model that assumes hor-
izontally varying meteorological conditions has been
suggested by Greenaert [2007]. Examples of such
conditions are reported to frequently happen in the
Persian Gulf [Brooks et al., 1999]. One of the more
widely accepted high delity evaporation duct mod-
els which has been used in various evaporation duct
research studies is the model developed by the Naval
Postgraduate School [Frederickson et al., 2000a]. A
4-parameter model for range independent evapora-
tion ducts that controls the duct height, Mdecit
and slope has been suggested by Zhang et al. [2011b].
The PaulusJeske (PJ) evaporation duct model is
more commonly used operationally due to its empir-
ical correction for spuriously stable conditions. The
PJ model is based on the air and sea surface tem-
peratures, relative humidity, wind speed with sensor
heights at 6 m and the assumption of a constant sur-
face atmospheric pressure [Jeske, 1973; Paulus, 1985;
Babin et al., 1997]. For the neutral evaporation duct,
where the empirical stability functions approach a
constant, the PJ model is simplied to [Rogers et al.,
2000]:
M(z) = M
0
+c
0
(z h
d
ln
z +z
0
z
0
), (2)
in which M
0
is the base refractivity, c
0
= 0.13 M-
unit/m corresponding to the neutral refractivity pro-
le as described by Paulus [1990], z
0
is the rough-
ness factor taken as 1.5 10
4
m, and h
d
is the duct
height. The exact choice of M
0
(usually taken in
the interval [310360] M-units/m) does not aect the
propagation pattern since it is the derivative of M
that dictates wave propagation in the medium [Hit-
ney, 1994; Gerstoft et al., 2000].The assumption of
neutral stability implies that the air and sea-surface
temperature dierence is nearly zero, and wind speed
is no longer required. It was found in [Rogers and
Paulus, 1996] that propagation estimates based on
a neutral-stability bulk model performed well rela-
tive to other more sophisticated bulk models for the
measurement sets under consideration. This is an
important point as all RFC-estimated evaporation
duct heights, and subsequently evaporation duct pro-
les given in (2), are based on neutral conditions.
2.2. Surface-based ducts
Surface ducts typically are due to the advection of
warm and dry coastal air to the sea. The trilinear
approximation of the M-prole, as shown in Fig. 2b,
is represented by:
M(z) = M
0
+
_
_
m
1
z z h
1
m
1
h
1
+m
2
(z h
1
) h
1
z h
2
m
1
h
1
+m
2
(h
2
h
1
) h
2
z
+m
3
(z h
1
h
2
)
(3)
where m
3
= 0.118 M-units/m, consistent with the
mean over the United States. Since proles are up-
ward refracting, clutter power is not very sensitive to
m
3
[Gerstoft et al., 2003b].
A surface duct, schematically shown in Fig. 2c, has
also been used by Gerstoft et al. [2003b]; Rogers et al.
[2005], which includes an evaporation duct layer be-
neath the trapping layer:
M(z) = M
0
+
_
_
M
1
+c
0
_
z h
d
ln
z+z0
z0
_
z z
d
m
1
z z
d
z h
1
m
1
h
1
M
d
zh1
z
thick
h
1
z h
2
m
1
h
1
M
d
+m
3
(z h
2
) h
2
z
(4)
where c
0
= 0.13, m
1
is the slope in the mixed layer,
m
3
= 0.118 M-units/m, h
1
is the trapping layer base
height, and z
d
is the evaporation duct layer height
determined by:
z
d
=
_
h
d
1m1/c0
0 <
1
1m1/c0
< 2
2h
d
Otherwise
(5)
subject to z
d
< h
1
. h
1
= 0 simplies (4) to a
bilinear prole and h
2
= 0 implies standard at-
mosphere. z
thick
is the thickness of the inversion
layer, and h
2
= h
1
+ z
thick
. M
1
is determined by
M
1
= c
0
h
d
ln
z
d
+z0
z0
+z
d
(m
1
c
0
), and M
d
is the M-
decit of the inversion layer. Gerstoft et al. [2003b]
used an 11 parameter model for the environmental
refractivity prole: ve paremters for the vertical
structure as in (4), and six to model the range varia-
tions of the prole. They assumed that the trapping
layer height h
2
is range dependent and used principle
components of h
2
as a Markov process with respect
to range.
Most of the RFC studies including [Gerstoft et al.,
2004; Yardim et al., 2007; Vasudevan et al., 2007]
have used a four parameter surface based duct.
However, the frequency range of the validity of
a trilinear approximation to the surface duct re-
fractivity structure is arguable. As Fig. 3 demon-
strates, the trilinear approximation to complex re-
fractivity prole structures gets worse for modeling
wave propagation at higher frequencies. Propaga-
tion loss and clutter power of a measured prole
and its trilinear approximation are shown in this g-
ure. The prole is from the SPANDAR1998 dataset
(Run 07, range 50 km) measured by an instrumented
helicopter along the 150
azimuth shown in Fig. 1

[Rogers et al., 2000]. Panel (a) shows the trilinear
approximation obtained by minimizing the l
2
norm
of the dierence of the approximated and real pro-
les given that the slope of the third line is xed and
equal to 0.12 M-units/m. Panel (b) shows the prop-
agation loss of the measured prole with antenna
height of 25 m, frequency of 3 GHz, beamwidth of
0.4
and wind speed of 5 m/s. The propagation loss

is obtained from the Advanced Propagation Model
[Barrios, 2002] which uses a parabolic equation code
[Barrios, 1994]. The clutter power is obtained from a
multiple angle clutter model [Karimian et al., 2011b].
Panels (c) and (d) show that the error of the trilinear
approximation for a complicated structure increases
with frequency. Here, the average absolute error of
the propagation loss inside the duct increases from
4.9 dB at 3 GHz to 6.7 dB at 10 GHz. The absolute
value of the clutter power dierence due to the mea-
sured refractivity prole and its trilinear approxima-
tion increases from the average of 8.2 dB at 3 GHz
to 13.3 dB at 10 GHz. However, experimental mea-
sured proles show that the trilinear approximation
is sucient for most of the surface-based ducts, es-
pecially when propagation is to be modeled at 3 GHz
and lower frequencies [Gerstoft et al., 2003b].
A wavelet representation of the conductivity pro-
le was suggested in the similar inverse scattering
problems arising in geophysical prospecting [Miller
and Willsky, 1996a, b]. Generalized Karhunen
Loeve transform [Hua and Liu, 1998] was used by
Kraut et al. [2004] to nd the the tropospheric re-
fractivity basis vectors of VOCAR 1993 proles mea-
sured o the coast of California. Both of these ap-
proaches are capable of representing environmental
proles in more detail with additional complexity in
inversions.
2.3. Elevated ducts
Elevated ducts, schematically shown in Fig. 2d,
are unstable atmospheric conditions that are primar-
ily observed over the land but may also be formed
across the seashore when cool air ows over a warmer
sea [Guinard et al., 1964; Gossard, 1981; Kukushkin,
2004]. The eects from these types of ducts are
not visible on a radar screen since radar beams get
trapped in the elevated layer above the ocean level.
Elevated ducts might be predicted from the nature
of heat absorbing and radiating boundaries and the
cloud cover [Gossard, 1981].
3. Electromagnetic theory and forward
modeling
Given a refractivity structure m in a maritime en-
vironment, the expected clutter power is obtained as
a function of radar and environmental parameters.
Assuming that electromagnetic waves hit the surface
at a single grazing angle at range r, the received radar
300 310 320 330
0
100
200
300
(a)
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e

(
m
)
M!units

measured prof.
trilinear approx.
(b)

20 40 60 80
0
50
100
150
200
!20
0
20
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e

(
m
)
(c)

20 40 60 80
0
50
100
150
200
0
10
20
(d)
20 40 60 80
0
50
100
150
200
0 20 40 60 80
!30
!20
!10
0
(e)
Range (km)
c
l
u
t
t
e
r

p
o
w
e
r

(
d
B
)
0 20 40 60 80
!30
!20
!10
0
(f)
Range (km)
(dB)!
Figure 3. (a) A measured prole from the 1998 SPANDAR and its trilinear approximation. (b)
propagation loss (dB) of the measured prole at 3 GHz. Propagation loss dierence of the measured
prole and the trilinear approximation at (c) 3 GHz, (d) 10 GHz. Clutter power comparison of the
prole and its trilinear approximation at (e) 3 GHz, (f) 10 GHz.
power is [Dockery, 1990; Skolnik, 2008]:
P
r
(r) =
P
t
GA
e
F
4
(r, m)
(4)
2
r
4
L
, (6)
where P
t
is the transmitter power, G the antenna
gain, A
e
the antenna eective aperture, the ef-
fective cross section of the scatterer, L the total as-
sumed system losses, and F is the propagation factor
at the sea surface. The pattern propagation factor F
is dened as the ratio of the magnitude of the electric
eld at a given point under specied conditions to the
magnitude of the electric eld under free-space con-
ditions [Kerr, 1951]: F(r) =
|E(r)|
|E
fs
(r)|
. F is a function
of range r and the refractivity structure m at each
location. The antenna eective aperture is obtained
as a function of the wavelength , A
e
=

2
G
4
. The
clutter cross-section becomes = A
c
0
where
0
is the clutter cross section per unit area and A
c
is
the area of the radar cell [Skolnik, 2008]:
A
c
= r
B
(c/2) sec ((r, m)) , (7)
with
B
the antenna pattern azimuthal beamwidth,
c the propagation speed, the pulse width, and is
the grazing angle which is a function of range and
the environmental refractivity. From this point on,
F(r, m) and (r, m) are shown as F and for sim-
plicity. Thus, the clutter power at the range r is
obtained as:
P
c
(r) =
P
t
G
2
B
c
0
sec()F
4
2(4r)
3
L
. (8)
The propagation factor F is calculated by numer-
ical solutions to the wave propagation problem (Sec-
tion 3.1). The sea surface-reectivity per unit area
0
is calculated from semi-empirical models that t
the experimental measurements to a function of sys-
tem parameters (Section 3.2).
The angle with which electromagnetic waves hit
the ocean surface varies with range. However, the
dependence of the clutter model on grazing angle
has been neglected at far distances from the radar
in [Rogers et al., 2000, 2005; Gerstoft et al., 2003b;
Kraut et al., 2004; Yardim et al., 2006, 2008; Vasude-
van et al., 2007; Wang et al., 2009; Douvenot and
Fabbro, 2010; Zhao et al., 2011]. The sec() term
also is a weak function of at low angles. Thus,
normalization of the clutter power by the power at
range r
0
yields the approximation:
P
c
(r)
P
c
(r
o
)

_
r
o
r
_
3
F
4
(r)
F
4
(r
o
)
. (9)
Rogers et al. [2000] considered the dependency of
the sea-surface reectivity with grazing angle in an
evaporation duct and concluded that
0

0
given
that the clutter cells are far enough from the radar.
They also investigated the existence of a minimum
wind speed under which radar return is not reliable
for duct height inversion. The minimum wind speed
(usually less than is 2 m/s) depends on the radar pa-
rameters and sensitivity.
To overcome the problem of uncertainty of
0
, geo-
metrical ray tracing and rank correlation was used by
Barrios [2004] for inversion of surface-based ducts.
The assumption that there is a single grazing an-
gle at each range is not always valid, especially
in strong surface-based ducts where multiple electo-
magnetic waves with dierent angles hit the surface
at each location. Karimian et al. [2011b] suggested
a clutter model that depends on all grazing angles
proportional to their relative powers:
P
c
(r) =

c
(r)F
4
(r)
_
()d
_
0,GIT
() sec()()
F
4
std
()
d,
(10)
where
c
(r) =
PtG
2
B
c
2(4r)
3
L
includes all grazing an-
gle independent terms,
0,GIT
is the sea surface re-
ectivity from the GIT model (discussed in Section
3.2), () is the relative energy of incident wavefronts
at each grazing angle obtained from a curved wave
beamformer, and F
std
() is the propagation factor
of a standard atmosphere at a range with the same
grazing angle. An analysis of the performance of dif-
ferent clutter models in RFC inversions is provided
in [Karimian et al., 2011a].
3.1. Wave propagation modeling
From the early days of wave propagation mod-
eling, a divergence arose due to the distinct dier-
ences in applications emphasizing environmental ef-
fects over terrain versus over the oceans. Due to the
advances in computer processing as well as innova-
tive mathematical techniques for numerically inten-
sive problem solving, the most popular techniques for
Radio Frequency (RF) propagation modeling have
converged such that these same methods are well
suited for both land and water propagation paths.
Since the emphasis of this paper is on the estimation
of refractive conditions over the ocean, this section
will describe only those RF propagation modeling
techniques and algorithms as they pertain to mod-
eling anomalous propagation eects on over-water
paths.
One of the rst radiowave propagation models that
took into account the eects of both evaporation
ducts and surface-based ducts was based on the tech-
niques described in [Kerr, 1951] and [Blake, 1980].
The model determines the coherent sum of the di-
rect and surface-reected elds within the optical in-
terference region, also accounting for divergence and
non-perfect reection by use of a modied Fresnel re-
ection coecient [Hitney and Richter, 1976]. Mod-
eling refractive eects is limited since within this re-
gion, the use of an eective earth radius factor is em-
ployed to account for non-standard conditions. For
diraction eects beyond the radio horizon, duct-
ing eects are based on a single mode model where
an empirical t to waveguide solutions are used to
modify Kerrs standard diraction method [Hitney,
1994].
For modeling of height-varying refractive condi-
tions, waveguide models oer a much higher delity
solution and have been in use since the early 1900s
[Budden, 1961]. Waveguide models employ normal
mode theory and are well suited when refractive con-
ditions do not change along the path. Due to the
high computational requirements for mode searches,
another caveat is that normal mode models are typ-
ically used beyond the radio horizon where far fewer
modes are needed for a solution [Pappert et al., 1992;
Hitney, 1994].
One of the more popular techniques for RF prop-
agation modeling is the parabolic equation (PE)
method, also known as the paraxial approximation
method. Originally used by Leontovich and Fock
[1946], the PE method allows for propagation con-
ditions to vary in both height and range. However,
the PE method was not in practical use until Hardin
and Tappert [1973] developed a technique called the
split-step Fourier (SSF) method, initially applied to
underwater acoustic propagation. The SSF method
took advantage of fast Fourier transforms that led to
extremely ecient numerical solutions of the PE. Ko
et al. [1983]; Skura et al. [1990] modied the under-
water acoustic SSF PE to model radiowave propaga-
tion in the troposphere. Since that time many im-
provements and mathematical techniques have been
introduced in the SSF PE algorithm for applications
to RF propagation in the troposphere. For an ex-
cellent treatise on the development of many of these
techniques, the reader is referred to Levy [2000].
Due to its eciency and accuracy the SSF PE
algorithm is now widely used in many radiowave
propagation models, including the model used here
to obtain results presented in this paper. A gen-
eral description of the SSF PE algorithm is given in
the following, with more details provided on specic
implementation of the model used here. Applying
the simple assumption of a slowly varying medium,
Maxwells equations can be reduced to the scalar two-
dimensional (Cartesian) elliptical Helmholtz equa-
tion:
2
(x, z)
x
2
+

2
(x, z)
z
2
+k
2
0
n
2
(x, z) = 0, (11)
where (x, z) is a function of the electric or magnetic
eld, depending on the polarization of the radiated
eld; and n is the refractive index of the medium
(implicitly also a function of x and z). The usual
starting point for the derivation of the PE is sub-
stituting the function (x, z) = e
jk0x
u(x, z) in (11),
then factor the result into, respectively, forward and
backward pseudo-dierential equations:
u(x, z)
x
+jk
0
_
1
1
k
2
0
2
z
2
+n
2
_
u(x, z) = 0, (12)
u(x, z)
x
+jk
0
_
1 +
1
k
2
0
2
z
2
+n
2
_
u(x, z) = 0. (13)
This substitution eectively removes the rapid phase
variation in , leaving u(x, z) a slowly varying func-
tion in range. In most PE models used for long range
radiowave tropospheric propagation, only the for-
ward propagating term (12) is solved, and the back-
ward propagating term is ignored.
Initial PE algorithms incorporated simple approx-
imations to (12), resulting in the standard PE (SPE).
The limitation with using the SPE is that it is
a narrow-angle approximation and leads to larger
errors when propagating at large angles, typically
greater than 10
for microwave frequencies. Feit and

Fleck [1978] developed the wide-angle PE (WAPE)
for propagation within optical bers, by using an al-
ternative approximation of the square-root operator.
Later, Thomson and Chapman [1983] quantied the
error associated with the use of various approxima-
tions to the square-root operator, concluding that the
WAPE propagator developed by Feit and Fleck was
a substantial improvement in reducing phase errors
at large propagation angles necessary for their work
in underwater acoustic propagation. More recently,
Kuttler [1999] analyzed the dierences between the
SPE and WAPE and oered yet a further improve-
ment for the WAPE and wide-angle sources.
The Leontovich surface impedance boundary con-
dition must then be applied to obtain a solution for
the WAPE:
u
z
z=0
+u
z=0
= 0, (14)
where the complex is given by
h,v
= jk
0
sin
_
1
h,v
1 +
h,v
_
. (15)
Here, is the grazing angle of the radiated eld at the
surface, is the Fresnel reection coecient - also
dependent on the grazing angle, and the subscripts
h and v refer to horizontal and vertical polarization
respectively. The discrete mixed Fourier transform
(DMFT) formulation provided by Dockery and Kut-
tler [1996] implements the impedance boundary con-
dition and derives the new split-step solution entirely
in the discrete domain. The DMFT method has the
added advantage that it retains numerical eciency
due to requiring only sine transforms. Further re-
nement of the DMFT was presented by Kuttler and
Janaswamy [2002] where they applied various dier-
ence formulations for (14) to arrive at an improved
DMFT algorithm, reducing much of the numerical
instabilities associated with the quantity
h,v
when
Re(
h,v
) approaches zero.
The propagation model used for the results pre-
sented in this paper implements the WAPE and
the DMFT algorithm as described in Kuttler [1999];
Dockery and Kuttler [1996]; Kuttler and Janaswamy
[2002] and is called the Advanced Propagation Model
(APM). The handling of range-varying vertical re-
fractive proles is described in [Barrios, 1992] and a
general description of the APM is provided in [Bar-
rios, 2003].
Pertinent to the RFC methodology is the accuracy
of the forward scattered eld, which is subsequently
dependent on how
h,v
is modeled. Typically, the
boundary condition is modeled such that a constant
impedance is assumed within each range step, de-
350 400
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
M units
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e

(
m
)
(a)
0 100 200 300
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Range (km)
(b)
A
n
g
l
e

(
d
e
g
)
Figure 4. (a) Refractivity prole of surface-based duct
used for (b) determination of grazing angles by ray trace
(solid) and nal maximum angles (dashed lines) used for
computing
h,v
.
pendent on a single grazing angle associated with
the dominant mode of propagation for the specied
refractive environment. We apply the Kircho ap-
proximation and model the sea surface boundary by
determining an eective impedance described by a
reduction, , to the smooth surface Fresnel reec-
tion coecient,
0
, based on the Miller-Brown-Vegh
(MBV) model [Miller et al., 1984]:
h,v
=
0h,v
(16)
= e
2(2)
2
I
0
_
2(2)
2
(17)
=
h
w
sin
(18)
I
0
is the modied Bessel function of the rst kind,
and h
w
is the rms wave height from the Phillips ocean
wave spectrum [Phillips, 1985]:
h
w
= 0.0051v
2
w
, (19)
where v
w
is the wind speed in m/s. Within APM,
is approximated according to ITU reports [1990] by
the expression
=
1
_
3.2 2 +
_
(3.2)
2
7 + 9
, (20)
= 8
2
2
. (21)
Next is to determine the grazing angle at each PE
range step to compute the eective reection coe-
cient and subsequent impedance. Grazing angles at
the sea surface can easily be found using a geomet-
ric ray trace based on small angle approximations
to Snells law [Dockery et al., 2007]. The caveat is
that for surface-based ducting conditions, there will
be multiple grazing angles within a given range in-
terval/step, as shown in Fig. 4. Figure 4(a) shows
the refractivity prole of a 300 m surface-based duct,
and the corresponding grazing angles are shown in
Fig. 4b. Notice that beyond the skip zone, at ranges
beyond 80 km, there are multiple grazing angles (i.e.,
multiple modes) present within a given range inter-
val. The challenge is determining the proper grazing
angle associated with the dominant mode of prop-
agation at a particular range. Geometric ray trac-
ing techniques oer no further information, therefore,
spectral estimation techniques have also been used
[Dockery and Kuttler, 1996; Schmidt, 1986; Barrios,
2003] in combination with geometric ray trace meth-
ods to obtain the appropriate angle at a given range
particularly useful in complex environments where
the propagation path is a combination of sea, land,
and a range-dependent atmosphere.
Of course, one of the caveats of modeling the
impedance in this way is that for surface-based duct-
ing environments it ignores the many, equally dom-
inant, modes propagating within the duct at multi-
ple grazing angles within a range step. The advan-
tage of using the MBV method to modify the sur-
face impedance is that it is easy to implement and
for the most part has been shown to perform very
well for range-independent evaporation duct environ-
ments where the incident eld can be described, to
a very good approximation, by a single grazing an-
gle beyond the interference region [Anderson, 1995;
Rogers et al., 2000].
A more rigorous, albeit conventional, approach
has been provided by Janaswamy [2001] to model
a non-constant impedance that directly takes into
account eects of the angle-dependent reection co-
ecient present at all grazing angles. However, in
keeping with the more numerically ecient SSF PE
approach, and considering the design toward op-
erational applications, the maximum grazing angle
(shown by the dashed line in Fig. 4b) is used in com-
puting
h,v
to model rough surface eects. This re-
sults in maximum, or worst-case, clutter values and
will in general over-estimate sea clutter.
Finally, a recent approach to more accurately
model the various eld strengths at the surface, and
subsequently, clutter power described by multiple
grazing angles, has been provided by Karimian et al.
[2011b] that takes all grazing angles and their rela-
tive powers at each range-step into account.
For the RFC application, the propagation factor,
F, in the clutter equation (810) is a function of
the complex PE eld and the range (note that range
is shown by r in the clutter equations and by x in
this section, since Maxwells equations are solved in
Cartesian coordinates):
F = |u(x, z
e
)|
x, (22)
where z
e
is the eective scattering height, taken as
0.6 times the mean wave height [Reilly and Dockery,
1990], or approximately 1 m above the ocean for most
situations [Rogers et al., 2000; Barrios, 2003]. The-
oretically, F should be computed from the incident
eld at the sea surface. However, PE approximations
yield the propagation factor due to the total eld
which is close to zero at the sea surface and high fre-
quencies. Konstanzer et al. [2000] showed that the
clutter power using the total eld propagation fac-
tor at the eective scattering height is proportional
to the clutter power using the incident propagation
factor.
3.2. Sea surface reectivity models
Proper characterization of the quantity
0
F
4
in
(8) is key to providing reasonable clutter predictions
to perform RFC. The diculty is that the surface
(a)
(b)
0.1 1 10
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
S
u
r
f
a
c
e

r
e
f
l
e
c
t
i
v
i
t
y

(
d
B
)
Grazing angle (deg)
(a)
0.1 1 10
Grazing angle (deg)
(b)

GIT
TSC
SIT
BAR
Grazing angle (deg)! Grazing angle (deg)!
Figure 5. Reectivity vs. grazing angle for several sea
surface reectivity models at (a) 3 GHz, and (b) 9.3 GHz.
reectivity is implicitly dependent on the forward
propagation eects dened by F. They are inher-
ently coupled yet these two quantities are commonly
treated separately to get an estimate of the return
clutter. Most sea surface reectivity models, there-
fore, are semi-empirical and are based on site-specic
propagation data, typically with no corresponding
meteorological measurements.
There are several semi-empirical models for the av-
erage sea surface reectivity per unit area that t the
experimental sea clutter data to a function of radar
frequency, grazing angle, beam width, wind speed,
radar look direction with respect to the wind, and
polarization. This quantity, represented by
0
, is
also referred to as the normalized radar reectivity
[Nathanson et al., 1991].
A hybrid model by Barton [1988] and the Georgia
Institute of Technology (GIT) model [Horst et al.,
1978] are among the classic sea surface reectiv-
ity models for low grazing angles that are valid in
the S and X band frequencies. A comparison of
dierent models is provided in [Reilly and Dock-
ery, 1990]. GIT, Technology Services Corp. (TSC)
[Fletcher, 1978], and Barton (BAR) reectivity mod-
els at 3 GHz are compared in Fig. 5a. A similar com-
parison at 9.3 GHz with the additional Sittrop (SIT)
[Sittrop, 1977] model is shown in Fig. 5b. Notice that
the TSC, BAR, and SIT models show similar depen-
dence of
0
on grazing angle, whereas the GIT model
exhibits higher attenuation at lower grazing angles.
Lower grazing angles imply the region near the radio
horizon subject to diraction eects. The increased
attenuation shown by the GIT model as a function
of decreasing grazing angle is indicative of standard
diraction eects, and it is for this reason the GIT
model has been more widely used. That is, the GIT
reectivity can be assumed to be representative of
0
under standard atmosphere conditions.
Reilly and Dockery [1990] modied the GIT model
to consider ducting eects on the radar backscatter
by dividing
0
by the standard atmosphere propaga-
tion factor and multiplying by the propagation factor
of the desired conditions [Dockery, 1990].
Normalized mean sea backscattering coecient
0
for grazing angles of 0.1 to 60
and frequencies of 0.5

to 35 GHz are tabulated by Nathanson et al. [1991]
based on almost 60 experiments. A model to t
the aforementioned dataset for grazing angles less
than 10
and frequencies up to 35 GHz is provided

by Gregers-Hansen and Mital [2009]. Modeling the
sea surface reectivity suitable for RFC applications
remains an active eld of research.
Calculation of the grazing angle is the key to the
calculation of radar backscatter. A hybrid of ray
tracing and plane wave beamforming has been sug-
gested in the works of Dockery and Kuttler [1996];
Barrios [2003]; Dockery et al. [2007] to nd the an-
gle of arrival based on the propagation conditions.
Karimian et al. [2011b] suggested a curved wave
beamformer that depends on the refractivity prole
at each location.
4. Inverse problem framework
The radar clutter depends on the two way prop-
agation loss from the transmitter to the range cell.
The loss in turn depends on the environmental re-
fractivity prole through which the wave is propa-
gated. The expected clutter power of each candidate
prole is computed and an objective function that
quanties the dierence between the observed, P
o
,
and the simulated clutter power, P
s
(m), is formed.
P
o
and P
s
are the vectors of clutter power over the
radar range. The candidate prole that yields the
minimum dierence is declared as the best match.
m = argmin
m
(P
o
, P
s
(m)). (23)
The simulated clutter is a function of the propaga-
tion factor F, as seen in (6). F in turn, is a function
of the environmental prole m. Using an l
2
norm as
the objective function yields:
= P
o
P
s
(m)
2
, (24)
which is also the negative log-likelihood function un-
der the Gaussian noise assumption. Minimizing (23)
over the refractivity prole m requires an ecient
numerical search for the optimum values.
There have been several approaches to estimate
the refractivity parameters from the observed clutter
including: a matchedeld processing approach to-
ward inversion [Gerstoft et al., 2000], a genetic algo-
rithm [Gerstoft et al., 2003b], a Markovchain Monte
Carlo sampling approach to estimate the uncertain-
ties of the inverted parameters [Yardim et al., 2006],
Markov state space model for microwave propaga-
tion [Vasudevan et al., 2007], Kalman and particle
lters [Yardim et al., 2008], support vector machines
[Douvenot et al., 2008], particle swarm optimization
[Wang et al., 2009], a Bayesian approach with meteo-
rological prior [Yardim et al., 2009], an improved best
t approach [Douvenot and Fabbro, 2010; Douvenot
et al., 2010] and a range adaptive objective function
[Zhang et al., 2011a].
Gingras et al. [1997] suggested a matched-eld
processing approach for source localization and inver-
sion for environmental parameters which was based
on plotting ambiguity surfaces of unknown variables.
Gerstoft et al. [2000] showed successful application of
the matched-eld processing technique to invert for
surface-based duct parameters. They also showed
that it was not possible to invert for elevated duct
parameters using single surface measurements.
Most of the previous RFC studies inverted the
clutter power for the refractivity structure in a short
range interval assuming changes in the refractivity
prole to be negligible. Gerstoft et al. [2003b] in-
verted for a range-dependent prole by considering
range-dependent parameters. Vasudevan et al. [2007]
used a Markov chain model on the propagation state
space [Rabiner, 1989] to consider a range dependent
prole. The latter approach reduces the complex-
ity of inversions based on the number of unknown
proles with the added advantage of correcting in-
verted prole of shorter ranges eciently by consid-
ering clutter power from longer ranges.
4.1. Likelihood function
The relationship between the observed complex-
valued radar I and Q components of the eld u
I,o
and u
Q,o
over N
r
range bins and the predicted eld
u
I,s
and u
Q,s
is described by the model:
u
I,o
=

n
1
u
I,s
(m)e
j1
+n
2
e
j2
(25)
u
Q,o
=

n
1
u
Q,s
(m)e
j1
+ n
2
e
j

2
(26)
where n
1
is the multiplicative random variable in the
modeled electric eld due to a variable sea surface
reectivity. Yardim et al. [2009] considered dier-
ent probability distributions for the random variable
n
1
including lognormal, K-distribution and Rayleigh.
Here, a lognormal distribution is assumed for each el-
ement of the vector n
1
. Noise in the receiver, n
2
and
n
2
, are modeled by Gaussian distributions.
1
,
2
,

2
are the random phase components of the complex
random variable with uniform distributions:
{log n
1
}
N
1
, G(0,
2
1
) (27)
{n
2
}
N
1
, { n
2
}
N
1
G(0,
2
2
) (28)
{
1
}
N
1
, {
2
}
N
1
, {
2
}
N
1
U(0, ) (29)
The radar output power is obtained by:
= |u
I
|
2
+|u
Q
|
2
. (30)
Thus, the observed and simulated clutter power are
related by:
o
= n
1
s
(m) +n
r
(31)
{log n
1
}
N
1
G(0,
2
1
) (32)
{n
r
}
N
1

2
(33)
where n
1
is the multiplicative noise with a lognor-
mal distribution, and n
r
is the additive receiver noise
with a
2
distribution and 2 degrees of freedom.
Working in the high CNR (clutter to noise ratio)
regime, the n
r
term can be neglected. Thus, the
modeled power in the logarithmic domain is obtained
as:
P
o
= P
s
(m) +n (34)
{n}
N
1
G(0,
2
), (35)
where, P
o
and P
s
(m) are vectors of the observed
and simulated clutter power of the prole m in dB,
and n = 10 log n
1
.
More than one source of clutter power observa-
tions can be used in an inversion. These sources can
include the clutter power at dierent frequencies, dif-
ferent radar elevation angles, or dierent snapshots
with similar conditions where P
n,o
corresponds to
the nth source of the observed clutter power. Given
N dierent sources with uncorrelated noise power
n
,
the maximum likelihood function becomes:
1
L(m) =
N
n=1
(
n
)
Nr
exp
_
P
o,n
P
s,n
(m)
2
n
_
.
(36)
Assuming that the noise power {
n
}
n=1..N
is con-
stant across dierent observations, the negative log-
likelihood function is simplied to
(m) = log L(m)
N
n=1
P
o,n
P
s,n
(m)
2
. (37)
The maximum likelihood estimate m for m is ob-
tained by minimizing (37) over the model parameter
vector m, which is similar to (23).
4.2. An inversion example
A set of refractivity prole measurements and
radar returns was recorded at Wallops Island, Vir-
ginia, April 1998 [Rogers et al., 2000; Gerstoft et al.,
2003b]. Clutter signals were measured using the
Space Range Radar (SPANDAR) with operational
frequency of 2.84 GHz, horizontal beamwidth of 0.4
,
elevation angle of 0, antenna height of 30.78 m, and
vertical polarization. The refractivity proles of the
environment were recorded using an instrumented
helicopter provided by the Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory. The helicopter ew in
and out along the 150
radial from a point 4 km due

east of the SPANDAR in a saw-tooth pattern with
each transect lasting 30 min.
The range-dependent refractivity prole measured
by the helicopter is shown in Fig. 7a. This prole cor-
responds to the measurement on April 2, 1998 from
13:19:14 to 13:49:00 (Run 07). The spatial varia-
tion of the M-prole is small in the 045 km range.
Thus, RFC results of the corresponding clutter ob-
servations are compared to the average of the mea-
sured M-proles in that range interval. Note that
although the experimental measurements are from
a range-dependent refractivity prole, inversions are
based on a range-independent prole.
Recorded clutter power of the SPANDAR between
azimuth 142166
is used to estimate the trilinear

function representing a surface-based duct since the
clutter pattern (Fig. 1d) is rather stationary in this
interval. The probability distribution of the refrac-
tivity prole from all inversion results is obtained and
the maximum a posterior (MAP) solution of this dis-
tribution is found to be the refractivity prole that
ts all data. Only the rst 60 km of the radar clutter
is used to invert for the refractivity prole to main-
tain a high CNR and to avoid high spatial variations
of refractivity with range. A multiple angle clutter
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e

(
m
)
(a)

20 40 60 80
0
100
200
!40
!20
0
Range (km)
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e

(
m
)
(b)

20 40 60 80
0
100
200
!40
!20
0
(dB)!
Figure 6. Propagation loss: (a) MAP estimate of the re-
fractivity prole given the clutter power at 150
azimuth
of SPANDAR Run 07, and (b) standard atmosphere.
1
|x| = (|x
1
|, |x
2
|, ...) and x
2
=
i
|x
i
|
2
.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0
50
100
150
200
(a) 340 380 M
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e

(
m
)
300 320
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
MProfile
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e

(
m
)
(b)

Avg. heli. profile
150
inversion
Range (km)
C
l
u
t
t
e
r

p
o
w
e
r

(
d
B
)
(c)

10 20 30 40 50 60
20
10
0
10
20
30
Clutter at 150
Inverted profile of 150
Figure 7. (a) Range-dependent refractivity prole recorded by an instrumented helicopter along

the 150
azimuth. (b) Average of the rst 45 km of the measured prole compared to the inverted
proles of 150
clutter (solid) and the MAP prole of 142166
(shaded). (c) observed and modeled

clutter power of the inverted prole.
model based on curved wave beamforming [Karim-
ian et al., 2011b] is used to calculate the clutter
power, and APM [Barrios, 2003] is used to calculate
the electric eld and propagation loss. Fig. 7 shows
the inverted proles obtained from clutter power ob-
served along the 150
azimuth, the helicopter mea-

sured refractivity along the 150
azimuth and the

span of inverted proles using clutter power along
142166
.
Fig. 6 shows the propagation loss using the in-
verted prole from Fig. 7b and a standard atmo-
sphere. Surface-based ducting conditions result in
the extended range of the radar and radar fades
in unexpected locations assuming a standard atmo-
sphere. Radar parameters in this gure are identical
to those of the SPANDAR.
4.3. Bayesian approach
One important motivation behind estimation of
the refractivity structure in the environment is to
predict the radar performance in non-standard atmo-
spheric conditions. This requires the statistical prop-
erties of the parameters-of-interest such as the prop-
agation loss which can be computed from the statis-
tical properties of the atmospheric refractivity. The
unknown environmental parameters are taken as ran-
dom variables with corresponding onedimensional
(1D) probability density functions (pdfs) and an n
dimensional joint pdf. This probability function can
be dened as the probability of the model vector m
given the observed clutter power P
o
, p(m|P
o
), and it
is called the posterior pdf (PPD). The prole m with
the highest probability is referred to as the maximum
a posteriori (MAP) solution. The posterior means,
variances, and marginal probability distributions can
be found by integrating over this PPD:
i
=
_
...
_
m
i
p(m
|P
o
)dm
, (38)
2
i
=
_
...
_
m
(m
i
)
2
p(m
|P
o
)dm
, (39)
p(m
i
|P
o
) =
_
...
_
m
(m
i
m
i
)p(m
|P
o
)dm
.(40)
The posterior density of any specic environmental
parameter can be obtained by marginalizing the n
dimensional PPD as given in (7) [Kay, 1993]. Ger-
stoft et al. [2004] used importance sampling (IS)
[MacKay, 2003] to compute the necessary multi-
dimensional integrals needed to map the environmen-
tal uncertainty into propagation loss uncertainty. IS
produces unbiased distributions of the desired vari-
ables, however, the variance of the estimates depend
heavily on the importance density used in IS. An-
other problem with IS is the slow rate of convergence
for the numerical computation of the integrals. Ger-
stoft et al. [2004] also compared IS to using just the
1-D marginals of refractivity parameters to compute
the PDF of propagation loss. As long as the interpa-
rameter correlations are negligible, using marginals
is computationally more ecient than IS. They later
showed that lowering the peak clutter to noise ratio
broadens the a posteriori distribution of the propa-
gation loss [Rogers et al., 2005].
The error in IS is minimized when samples are
drawn from the posterior distribution of the en-
vironmental parameters p(m|P
o
). Sampling from
the posterior requires a Markov chain Monte Carlo
(MCMC) class sampler [
O Ruanaidh and Fitzger-

ald, 1996; MacKay, 2003] such as the Metropolis-
Hastings (MH) [Metropolis et al., 1953] and the
Gibbs samplers [Geman and Geman, 1984]. MCMC
methods are guaranteed to asymptotically converge
to the true parameter distribution at a high compu-
tational cost. Yardim et al. [2006] used a MH sampler
to nd the a posteriori distribution for the environ-
mental model parameters and used the MH sampler
output to map the environmental uncertainty into
the propagation loss domain.
Yardim et al. [2007] introduced a hybrid genetic al-
gorithms (GA)MCMC method to estimate the pos-
terior probability faster than MCMC which does not
suer from the bias of histograms obtained from the
GA. The hybrid GAMCMC approximates the pos-
terior distribution faster than an MCMC by rst
performing a GA inversion, discretizing the envi-
ronmental parameter domain using the GA samples
via Voronoi decomposition and the nearest neighbor-
hood method [Sambridge, 1999a, b], and nally ap-
plying a fast Gibbs sampler over this discrete space.
The posterior distribution can be found using the
Bayes rule:
p(m|P
o
) =
p(m)L(m)
p(P
o
)
p(m)L(m), (41)
with
p(P
o
) =
_
m
p(P
o
|m)p(m)dm. (42)
The likelihood function L(m) is the same as in
(36), assuming a zero-mean Gaussian distribution for
the error. The prior p(m) represents a priori knowl-
edge about the environmental parameters m, which
might be from the meteorological statistics [Yardim
et al., 2009] or from the result of previous inversions
[Yardim et al., 2008; Douvenot et al., 2010]. A non-
informative or at prior assumption reduces (42) to:
p(m|P
o
) L(m), (43)
which has been discussed in Section 4.1. Fig. 8 is
adopted from [Yardim et al., 2006] which shows the
highest posterior density (HPD) of the propagation
loss obtained from the Metropolis samples of refrac-
tivity model parameters from Fig. 7. Posterior dis-
tributions are shown at a xed range of 60 km and
dierent altitudes of 28 and 180 m, one inside and
one outside the duct. The point inside the duct ex-
hibits a narrow distribution while the variance of the
estimated propagation loss outside the duct is much
larger. As expected, the detection range increases
along the horizon but this increase is not uniform.
Fig. 8c shows the eects of uncertainty in the envi-
ronmental parameters to a simple problem of target
detection given that the target is an isotropic an-
tenna with the radar cross section of 1 m
2
. The de-
tection threshold in this example is chosen as 35 dB
one way loss of the electric eld.
30 20 10 0 10
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
Propagation Factor, F (dB)
(a)
P
P
D
(
F
)
30 20 10 0 10
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
P
P
D
(
F
)
Propagation Factor, F (dB)
(b)
10 20 30 40 50 60
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Range (km)
H
e
i
g
h
t

(
m
)
(c)

90%
80%
70%
HPD Region
Figure 8. Posterior probability distribution of the propagation loss at range 60 km and altitudes
of (a) 28 m, and (b) 180 m above the mean sea level, from the inversion of Fig. 7. (c) Detection
probability given an isotropic target with an RCS of 1 m
2
.
A Markov state space model as discussed by Va-
sudevan et al. [2007] also provides a Bayesian frame-
work by considering the inversion result of the pre-
vious states to invert for the current range step.
Continuous temporal and spatial variations in the
environment led Yardim et al. [2008] to use extended
[Kay, 1993] and unscented [Julier et al., 2000; Wan
and van der Merve, 2001] Kalman lters to track
RFC results along with Sequential Monte Carlo [Gor-
don et al., 1993; Yardim et al., 2011] methods such
as the particle lters. The paper compared the lter
performances in RFC tracking for dierent types of
ducts and computed the Bayesian Cramer-Rao lower
bound (CRLB) which presents a lower bound to the
RMS error.
Douvenot et al. [2010] provided a non-Bayesian ap-
proach to inversion but modeled a history of inverted
parameters of surface-based ducts to keep the results
smooth in azimuthal variations. They considered a
library of pre-computed propagation losses of candi-
date proles to nd the one with the minimum dis-
tance to the observed clutter. Duct height variations
are limited in the latter study and a smoothing pro-
cedure on the refractivity proles is performed after
inversions.
4.4. Alternative RFC formulations
The form of the objective function in (37) suggests
that some observations can be weighted more heavily.
Usage of dierent frequencies is discussed in [Gerstoft
et al., 2000]. Gerstoft et al. [2003a] argued that us-
ing a single elevation angle results in inversions with
low precision above the duct height. Thus, they used
multiple elevation angles of the radar with dierent
weights in the objective function to obtain more ro-
bust inversions.
Rogers et al. [2005] considered a weighting for the
clutter power according to the distance of the range
bin from the radar in an evaporation duct. Zhang
et al. [2011a] suggested using an adaptive weighting
algorithm for dierent range bins in an evaporation
duct that depends on the CNR. Rogers et al. [2005]
have also suggested that RFC should be insensitive to
the small variations of peak locations of clutter power
with range. Thus, they produced random replica of
the predicted eld P
s
to make predictions less prone
to the measurement errors.
Consideration of an l
2
norm for error of (m) =
P
o
P
s
(m)
2
is a consequence of assuming an ad-
ditive uncorrelated Gaussian noise in (34). The term
n
r
in (31) models the noise oor in the receiver which
has been modeled by a linear truncation procedure in
the logarithmic power domain by Rogers et al. [2005]
and by a complex Gaussian distribution on the eld
by Vasudevan et al. [2007]; Karimian et al. [2011a].
A discussion of dierent random distributions and
their eect on RFC is provided in [Yardim et al.,
2009].
Other objective functions have also been suggested
in the statistical learning community. l
1
(sum of
absolute error terms) and the Huber norm [Huber,
1973] are less sensitive to the outliers than the com-
monly used l
2
norm. The Huber norm is a hybrid of
smooth l
2
norm for small errors and robust l
1
treat-
ment of large residuals, which has been used by Gui-
tton and Symes [2003]; Ha et al. [2009] for the robust
inversion of the seismic data.
There have been approaches that do not use the
clutter equation as a forward model for inversions.
Barrios [2004] used a rank correlation approach on
the ray tracing results of candidate proles to invert
for the surface-based duct parameters based on the
observed clutter power of a 5.6 GHz radar. A to-
mographic approach using a receiver array at the X-
band and correlating the arrival wavefront spectrum
to ray traces of candidate proles has been suggested
by Zhao and Huang [2011]. In a similar problem,
Park and Fabry [2011] used radar ground echo at
low elevation angles to estimate the vertical gradient
of refractivity near the ground. They used ray trac-
ing to model the radar coverage. One shortcoming of
the current RFC approaches is evident when surface
and weather (volume) clutter are hard to separate
such as in precipitation.
5. Conclusion and future directions
RFC is an approach to estimate the refractivity
structure of a maritime environment based on the
observed radar clutter power. Marine ducts and
their mathematical models have been discussed, and
a framework for casting an inverse problem was pre-
sented. An inversion consists of a forward model
to map the candidate proles to the observation do-
main, and a similarity measure to nd the best pro-
le. However, there are several shortcomings in the
current approaches to RFC that need to be addressed
in future studies:
Bilinear and trilinear approximations to surface-
based ducts are not representative of the duct struc-
ture in some situations, and their performance wors-
ens their performance worsens as the operational fre-
quency increases. There have been attempts to over-
come this problem by suggesting environmental re-
fractivity models that rely on nding basis vectors
of the refractivity prole. Models for duct structures
are required that are simple (for easy inversion), and
at the same time more representative of the true wave
propagation, especially if RFC is to be implemented
at frequencies higher than 3 GHz.
Sea surface reectivity models that are currently
used in the radar community, e.g. the GIT model, do
not represent well the sea reections at very low graz-
ing angles. Thus, remote sensing problems require
more realistic models of the sea surface reectivity
at these angles (< 1
).
One of the caveats of RFC algorithms is that de-
tection of elevated ducts is not possible since the
trapped electromagnetic waves do not interact with
the sea surface. However, these ducts can be pre-
dicted based on meteorological conditions [Gossard,
1981]. The 3-D refractivity proles are intimately
linked to the weather. There have been attempts to
include climatological statistics of duct heights based
on the observation location and time of the year for
evaporation ducts [Yardim et al., 2009].
Fusion of weather prediction algorithms with RFC
inversions can greatly increase the performance of
both. An example is in costal regions when the warm
ow of air over the sea forms a rising surface duct
for radar propagation. Numerical weather prediction
(NWP) systems have undergone substantial develop-
ment in the last decade. There currently exist capa-
bilities to extract 48 h radar forecast based on output
from NWP [Marshall et al., 2008]. These forecasts
are used now to predict the radar performance [Le-
Furjah et al., 2010]. An improvement of RFC then
would be using these elds as prior into the RFC
inversion. After the inversion, the RFC posterior re-
fractivity estimates could be used to inuence the
small-scale data assimilation for NWP. More research
is required to ll the gap between weather prediction
and RFC.
Acknowledgments. This work was supported by
SPAWAR under grant number N66001-03-2-8938, TDL
0049. Authors would like to thank Dominique Lesselier
and Ted Rogers for their constructive comments.
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(Received .)

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Radio Science, Volume ???

, Number , Pages 121,

azimuth shown in Fig. 1

and wind speed of 5 m/s. The propagation loss

for microwave frequencies. Feit and

and frequencies of 0.5

and frequencies up to 35 GHz is provided

radial from a point 4 km due

is used to estimate the trilinear

Inverted profile of 150

Figure 7. (a) Range-dependent refractivity prole recorded by an instrumented helicopter along

clutter (solid) and the MAP prole of 142166

(shaded). (c) observed and modeled

azimuth, the helicopter mea-

azimuth and the

O Ruanaidh and Fitzger-

O Ruanaidh, J. J. K., and W. J. Fitzgerald, Numerical

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