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Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing pp 51–54Cite as

Calibration, Synthetic Aperture Radars

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Part of the Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series book series (EESS)

Synonyms

Imaging radar calibration

Definition

Synthetic aperture radar(SAR). A type of radar that forms high-resolution images of surfaces (planetary and terrestrial) using a technique known as aperture synthesis.

SAR calibration. Encompasses all of the necessary steps taken to convert SAR image pixel values to fundamental units such as (normalized) radar cross section, measured in units of (m2/m2), or relative phase, measured in degrees.

SAR calibration performance. An assessment of how well the calibrated SAR image pixel values correspond to the desired fundamental units.

Relative calibration performance (precision). An assessment of the relative errors between measurements made by a sensor of the same quantity separated in time or space.

Absolute calibration performance (accuracy). An assessment of the error in any single measurement made by a sensor as compared with an accepted, standard reference value.

Introduction

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) was first conceived and...

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Acknowledgments

This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the NASA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Anthony Freeman

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  1. Anthony Freeman
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Correspondence to Anthony Freeman .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Eni G. Njoku

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Freeman, A. (2014). Calibration, Synthetic Aperture Radars. In: Njoku, E.G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_13

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