polarization is one of the important characteristics of the interaction between light and substance, which relates to the shape and the material of the target. to research the effects of the degree of polarization (dop) caused by different materials, the polarized bidirectional reflectance distribution function (pbrdf) model has been established by the theory of microfacet but in this model, the scattering effect of polyhedron is ignored. based on these researches, the dop model of satellite with different shapes (cuboid, cylinder and sphere) is set up and simulated. the simulating results show that the dop of satellite relates with the complex refractive index, shape of satellite, incident angle and view angle. it is also proved that the polarization is a reflection of the characteristics of material, shape of satellite, which provides theoretical support for identifying satellite. (c) 2015 published by elsevier gmbh.