Calibration and validation of the Pi-SAR-L2

Abstract

This paper summarizes the calibration and validation results of the JAXA's new airborne polarimetric interferometric L-band synthetic aperture radar, i.e., Pi-SAR-L2, developed in 2011-2012 and started the operation in April of 2012. Pi-SAR-L2 is enhanced for the radiometric and geometric performances with 85MHz bandwidth and the accurate Inertial Navigation System. Polarimetric and geometric calibration has been conducted using the corner reflectors and the forest at Tomakomai-forest in Hokkaido. Statistical evaluation of the data acquired at the various test sites determined the noise equivalent sigma-zero as -54dB, which is significantly low enough value to apply the Pi-SAR-L2 at the various research areas.