A review of ionospheric effects in low-frequency SAR — Signals, correction methods, and performance requirements

Ionospheric signal distortions are commonplace in low-frequency space-borne SAR observations and can lead to the degradation of SAR data quality and data consistency if no signal compensation is applied. In this paper we will give an overview of the problem of ionospheric influence in SAR, PolSAR, and InSAR data. We will characterize the spatiotemporal signal properties of ionospheric signals, introduce a selection of currently available correction methods, and present a list of performance requirements to be met by ionospheric correction.