A novel approach applied for the Internal and semi-external calibration of the PARSAX dual-channel polarimetric agile radar system

Abstract

Polarimetric agile radar is able to measure all elements of the polarization-dependent backscattering matrix (BSM) simultaneously. Polarimetric calibration is an important issue to determine the BSM accurately. This paper focuses mainly on the internal and semi-external calibration of the dual-channel polarimetric agile radar system. The paper presents a novel approach based on very up to date methods used for cross-validation between simulations and measurements. Error models of all parts of the radar system will be derived from the approach and implemented in the radar system calibration. After calibration, the good matching performance for relative measurement between two channels demonstrates the validity of the here-proposed calibration approach.