Analytical Calibration Approach for the Polarimetric Airborne C Band Radiometer

摘要

Passive microwave remote sensing is sensitive to the quantity and distribution of water in soil and vegetation. During summer 2000, the Microwave Geophysics Group at the University of Michigan conducted the seventh Radiobrighness Energy Balance Experiment (REBEX-7) over a corn canopy in Michigan. Long time series of brightoess temperatures, soil moisture and micrometeorology on the plot scale were taken. This paper addresses the calibration of the NASA GSFC polarimetric airborne C band microwave radiometer (ACMR) that participated in REBEX-7. These passive polarimeters are typically calibrated using an end-to-end approach based upon a standard artificial target or a well-known geophysical target. Analying the major internal functional subsystems offers a different perspective. The primary goal of this approach is to provide a transfer function that not only describes the system in its entirety but also accounts for the contributions of each subsystem toward the final modified Stokes parameters.