Antenna pattern error calibration for L-band synthetic aperture radiometer

In the synthetic aperture radiometer system, the imperfection of the antenna pattern and the inconsistency between the elements can cause systematic spatial error on the retrieved image. Antenna pattern error analysis and calibration methods of an L-band 1-D synthetic aperture radiometer are presented in this paper. An improved calibration algorithm proposed here uses approximate observation target modeled brightness temperature to replace the reference brightness temperature defined as the mean value of the field of view in the flat target transformation(FTT) method. This improved method is verified through a simulation system that simulates L-band 1-D synthetic aperture radiometer's observation process in viewing a series of near real case brightness temperature maps. This is submitted for the special session of “New Developments of Chinese Oceanographic and Meteorological Satellites”.