Corner Reflector - How IT Works

How It Works

The incoming ray is reflected three times, once by each surface, which results in a reversal of direction. To see this, the three corresponding normal vectors of the corner's perpendicular sides can be considered to form a basis (a rectangular coordinate system) (x, y, z) in which to represent the direction of an arbitrary incoming ray, . When the ray reflects from the first side, say x, the ray's x component, a, is reversed to -a while the y and z components are unchanged, resulting in a direction of . Similarly, when reflected from side y and finally from side z, the b and c components are reversed. So the ray direction goes from to to to and it leaves the corner reflector with all three components of direction exactly reversed.