Calibration of Polarimetric Radar Data using the Sylvester Equation in a Pauli Basis

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel polarimetric radar calibration method utilizing scene-based trihedral reflectors and a Pauli basis transformation to effectively remove receiver distortions and simplify calibration, including Faraday rotation effects.

Contribution

It presents a new calibration approach that employs scene reflectors and a Pauli basis to directly address receiver and transmitter distortions without relying on clutter averaging or symmetry assumptions.

Findings

Successfully removes receiver distortion components using scene reflectors.

Simplifies calibration of Faraday rotation effects in the Pauli basis.

Estimates cross-talks and fully calibrates without clutter averaging.

Abstract

In this paper we develop a new approach to the calibration of polarimetric radar data based on two key ideas. The first is the use of in-scene trihedral corner reflectors not only for radiometric and geometric calibration but also to completely remove any receiver distortion components. Secondly, we then show that the remaining transmitter distortion acts as a similarity transformation of the true scattering matrix. This leads us to employ a change of base to the Pauli matrix components. We show that in this basis calibration and the effects of Faraday rotation become much simplified and for example by using reciprocity alone we can then solve for copolar channel imbalance. Finally by using an uncalibrated symmetric point target of opportunity we can estimate cross-talks and hence fully solve the calibration problem without the need for using clutter averaging or symmetry assumptions in the covariance matrix as used in many other algorithms.