The CAS airborne X-band synthetic aperture radiometer: system configuration and experimental results

Using interferometric synthetic aperture radiometer to measure the brightness temperature distribution of the Earth is a relative new technique for the microwave earth observation. Steady progresses of this technology have been achieved in both one-dimensional and two-dimensional cases since 1990's. The typical instruments are ESTAR and MIRAS. The CAS airborne X-band synthetic aperture radiometer is a thinned array microwave imaging radiometer, developed by National Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory (NMRS Lab), Center for Space Science and Applied Research (CSSAR) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The system integration of the instrument was accomplished in the Jan, 2004, and the first flying experiment was held in Apr, 2004. In this paper, both the system configuration and the experimental results of the instrument are described in detail