Cross-talk Calibration of Polarimetric SAR under Faraday Rotation

Abstract

As the potential of the radar polarimetry on the parametric observation of the Earth's environment gets wider awareness,the interest in low-frequency SAR is growing for the Earth observation. For the purpose of environment monitoring using SAR polarimetry, the requirement for the accurate and operational polarimetric calibrations is getting increased, especially under the Faraday rotation (FR). This manuscript proposes a novel method for the cross-talk calibration under FR applicable to L- and P-band spaceborne SAR missions including three generations of ALOS PALSAR series, SAOCOM, NISAR, ROSE-L, as well as BIOMASS. One of the earliest ideas of Klein’s eigenvector regulation and the widely assumed condition of reflection symmetry have been extended to the FR-condition. The channel imbalance is assumed to be calibrated in precedent in order to focus on the cross-talk calibration issue.