A. Nashashibi et al., A CALIBRATION TECHNIQUE FOR POLARIMETRIC COHERENT-ON-RECEIVE RADAR SYSTEMS, IEEE transactions on antennas and propagation, 43(4), 1995, pp. 396-404
A new technique for calibrating a coherent-on-receive polarimetric rad
ar system is proposed. A coherent-on-receive polarimetric radar is cap
able of measuring the Mueller matrix of point or distributed targets d
irectly by transmitting at least four independent polarizations and me
asuring the vertical and horizontal components of the backscatter sign
al simultaneously. The technique requires the use of two calibration t
argets, a target with known scattering matrix (such as a metallic sphe
re or a trihedral corner reflector) and any depolarizing target (for w
hich knowledge of its scattering matrix is not required) to determine
the system distortion parameters. The system distortion parameters, wh
ich include the channel imbalances, the cross-talk factors of both the
transmit and the receive antennas, and the phase shifts and amplitude
variations of the transmitter polarizers, are determined by measuring
the calibration targets for four different transmit polarizations. Th
e validity of the new calibration technique is examined by measuring t
he scattering matrices of spheres and cylinders as test targets using
a coherent-on-receive radar operating at 34.5 GHz. Excellent agreement
between the theoretical and the measured scattering matrices for the
test targets are obtained.