A Novel Space-Based Calibration Method for Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar System

A novel space-based calibration method for spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system is proposed in this paper. Different from the traditional calibration method, the calibration source, such as the transponder, is transferred from the ground to space, which can reduce the dependence on the ground bidding field and separate the atmospheric attenuation error. The analysis shows that the calibration accuracy is about 0.6 dB according to the typical system parameters. As the number of transponders increases, the calibration accuracy of the SAR system is also improved.