Synthetic Digital Correlation for Combined Polarimetric Microwave Remote Sensing

Combined passive and active microwave remote sensing can provide complementary information and enhance performance of the retrieval of parameters. In consideration of the combination of passive and active microwave polarimeters in an identical system, an active polarimetric matrix consisting of six parameters is combined with the format of the passive polarimetric parameters matrix which is known as the Stokes vector. A synthetic digital correlation method is designed to perform combined measurements of the two types of parameter matrixes, and to achieve cost saving using shared subsystems and hardware. Performances of the design are analyzed including measurement sensitivities, relative errors, and dynamic range.