Calibration of the CCRS airborne scatterometers

A series of experiments and associated analyses which were designed to lead to an end-to-end calibration of the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) fanbeam scatterometers are described. The method followed was originally introduced in 1984 by A. Yizhar et al. for the Ku-band scatterometer at one incidence angle. This work was extended to yield a full calibration for the Ku-band and C -band scatterometers over the complete range of incidence angles accessible to the instruments. An array of 12 trihedral corner reflectors was deployed in a grassy field near Ottawa. The CCRS CV-580, equipped with two scatterometers, repeatedly overflew the array collecting radar replicas of the targets proportional to the unknown two-dimensional antenna pattern. Data from inertial navigation systems and aerial photographs from a Wild RC-10 mapping camera were used to determine the exact track of the aircraft during the acquisition. This data, with a field survey, alloyed the reduction of the scatterometer data from the reflector array to yield the unknown antenna pattern of the instruments. The cross-polarized antenna patterns were then deduced from the like-polarized results. The results show consistency within 0.5 dB and overall calibration accuracy is estimated to be better than 1 dB