Side lobe control in the image retrieving of synthetic aperture radiometer

Using synthetic aperture radiometer to retrieve the brightness temperature distribution of the Earth is a relative new technique for the microwave Earth observation. But the side lobe of the synthetic aperture pattern will deteriorate the retrieved image. In the one dimensional synthetic aperture radiometer system, synthetic aperture pattern side lobe will produce the along-track streaks in the retrieved image, together with some other factors. Reducing these streaks is one of the most important tasks in the post data processing and image retrieving. In this paper, the Dolph-Chebyshev Linear Array Method is introduced to reduce the side lobe level (SLL) of the synthetic aperture pattern. Using the Dolph-Chebyshev taper window can achieve the optimal compromise between the main beam width and the SLL of the synthetic aperture pattern: all side lobes would be suppressed to the same specific level, while the main beam width would be as narrow as possible. The method is applied to some experimental data we achieved before. And the retrieved brightness temperature images are improved apparently.