Calibration experiments with DC-8 SAR data

This paper is a summary of some research activities in calibrating DC-8 SAR data conducted in 1989/90 by the author and others. Firstly, by examining the process of 'symmetrization' in the production of DC-8 Stokes' matrix data, it is shown that an exact solution to the problem of calibrating this data exists, given certain assumptions. Secondly a new, more general, system model for radar polarimeters is proposed, together with a simple approach for verifying the model's validity. The importance of the orientation angle about the radar line of sight for some types of calibration devices is discussed and some results of an experiment to cross-calibrate the C-Band VV data from the DC-8 and DLR E-SAR sensors are presented.