Synthetic Aperture Radar Calibration and Field Experiment Setup

In 2002, the MASAR (Malaysian Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar) project was initiated at Multimedia University (MMU), in collaboration with the Malaysian Centre for Remote Sensing (MACRES). The main objective of this project is to construct an instrument for earth resource monitoring in Malaysia. The proposed SAR system is a C-band, single polarization, linear frequency modulation radar. Before the flight campaign, preliminary testing and calibration were conducted to verify the functionality of the MASAR transmitter and receiver subsystems. The field experiment provides two-dimensional image resulting from range and cross range detection. Point target calibration technique is utilized for external calibration. In this paper, the field experiment setup, calibration of MASAR subsystems, radar hardware system as well as the Range-Doppler processing algorithm are presented. Both range detection and radar cross section (RCS) measurements capability are verified in the field experiments.