Potentials of SAR Antenna Pattern Recognition using Active Ground Receivers
Conference: EUSAR 2006 - 6th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar
05/16/2006 - 05/18/2006 at Dresden, Germany
Proceedings: EUSAR 2006
Pages: 4Language: englishTyp: PDF
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Authors:
Lenz, Rainer; Lambrecht, Andreas; Wiesbeck, Werner (Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Institut für Höchstfrequenztechnik und Elektronik (IHE), Kaiserstrasse 12, D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany)
Abstract:
This paper describes the potentials of SAR antenna pattern recognition using active and highly integrated, digitally controlled SAR system calibrators. For precise and high-quality SAR data, precise ground targets are necessary for external calibration of the SAR data. Compared to passive targets, active radar targets like transponders offer more features. The recording of the transmitted radar signals from the satellite becomes possible and allows additional data analysis and data correction. A total of 18 active transponder and receiver systems and 16 receiver only systems will be fabricated for the TerraSAR-X calibration campaign in summer 2006. For pre-launch investigation, a simulation environment with the TerraSAR-X parameters was built. The effects of errors of the radar antenna on the SAR image can be examined. Yet, with knowledge of the real radar performance due to the recorded radar data of the ground receivers, the matched filter in the SAR processor can be adapted so that possible errors do not affect the SAR image quality.