RCS measuremet and analysis of corner reflector and its background for KOMPSAT-5 calibration and validation

Radiometric Accuracy of SAR Image is one of the most important requirements for KOMPSAT (Korea Multi-Purpose SATellite)-5 and it is the main objective of calibration and validation procedure. The radiometric calibration can be divided into relative and absolute radiometric calibration. Point targets whose RCS (Radar Cross Section) can be evaluated with the close-form equation are required to perform absolute radiometric calibration. CR (Corner Reflector) is the most well-known reference ground target, because it has significantly large RCS compared to backscattering coefficient of background and it is easy to evaluate the RCS from its geometrical shape. In addition, background level of CR is also important factor for absolute radiometric calibration, because high signal-to-clutter ratio is determined from not only high RCS level of a point target but also low background level. The measured RCS of the CR and analysis background level of Mongolian site are shown in the paper, in order to represent that RCS of the CR is very accurate and background level of Mongolian site is significantly low for the KOMPSAT-5 calibration.