Airborne L-band SAR system: characteristics and initial calibration results

A new airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system was developed as a joint project between the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) and the Communications Research Laboratory (CRL). The developed L-band system is a fully polarimetric system and can acquire better quality data from the viewpoint of spatial resolution and radiometric characteristics, as compared with a satellite-borne system. In 1998 and 1999, calibration experiments were performed at both Tottori dune and Lake Saroma, where several corner reflectors had been deployed. The calibration method developed by JPL was applied to the acquired polarimetric data. By comparing the polarization signatures of trihedral corner reflectors before and after calibration, the effectiveness of the calibration was evaluated. This paper describes the characteristics of the L-band SAR system as well as the initial results of calibration experiment