Ground-based measurements of inflight antenna patterns for imaging radar systems

An approach is presented for determining the inflight antenna pattern in the cross-track direction for air- and spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems. In the 1991 Oberpfaffenhofen DC-8/E-SAR calibration campaign, ground-based measurement, equipment comprising 18 precision calibration receivers and nine polarimetric active radar calibrators, all operating in C-band, were tested. These instruments are capable of handling various pulse lengths and repetition frequencies, and they have a very high dynamic range. Together with precise internal clocks, these instruments are suitable for recording the actual radar transmit pulse shape for the later evaluation of the desired inflight antenna pattern. Lining up these devices in the cross-track direction, each receiver yields an azimuth cut of the three-dimensional antenna pattern. The elevation pattern was then obtained by time correlation of these azimuth cuts. Further results concerning pulse shapes, squint angles, and H-V pattern misalignment are presented