Correcting Distortion of Polarimetric SAR Data Induced by Ionospheric Scintillation

• Published in: IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing Vol. 53; no. 12; pp. 6319 - 6335
• Main Authors: Jun Su Kim, Papathanassiou, Konstantinos P., Scheiber, Rolf, Quegan, Shaun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.12.2015; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Azimuth; Faraday effect; Ionosphere; L-band; Military aircraft; Phase distortion; polarimetry; Radar; Scattering; spaceborne radar; Synthetic aperture radar; synthetic aperture radar (SAR); spaceborne radar; polarimetry; synthetic aperture radar (SAR); ionosphere; Faraday effect
• ISSN: 0196-2892; 1558-0644
• DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2015.2431856

A correction methodology for distortions induced by ionospheric scintillation on fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is proposed. The correction is based on deriving the phase distortion induced by the ionosphere from Faraday rotation estimates. The estimated phase distortion is then used for correction. In order to compensate the phase and time-Doppler history distortions, the correction has to be performed at the slant range of the ionospheric layer, i.e., on partially focused single-look complex data. Accordingly, the performance of the proposed correction methodology depends, among other factors, on knowledge of the altitude of the effective ionospheric layer (assuming the thin ionospheric layer model). Its estimation from the SAR data itself is therefore also addressed. The methodology was applied and validated on simulated P-band data for various ionospheric conditions and on real L-band data acquired by the Advanced Land Observation Satellite Phased Array L-band SAR (PALSAR).