A calibration method for polarimetric radar surveillance in a multi-path sea environment.

The scope of this work is to describe a novel method of calibration for polarimetric radar surveillance in a multi-path propagation environment. The method presented in this paper is based on a mathematical model which computes the errors in the estimate of the scattering matrix elements (amplitude and phase) of a radar object caused by multi-path propagation induced by scattering from the sea surface. The `correct´ scattering matrix of the radar object and its polarization properties are derived in the calibration process by the compensation of these multi-path induced errors. The results of the model show that these errors in the scattering matrix depend on the wave polarization (by the reflection coefficients) and multi-path propagation parameters e.g. number of scatterers at sea, degree of correlation between scatterers, sea state. The model predicts larger errors with increased reflectivity from the rough surface e.g by an increase of the reflection coefficients, the number of (multiple) scatterers at sea, the correlation between scatters, and lower sea state.