Calibration and measurement of a wideband six-port polarimetric measurement system

The principle of operation, calibration procedure, and experimental results of a wideband six-port polarimetric measurement system are described in this paper. This measurement system can measure the polarization states of incoming waves and the polarimetric scattering matrices of scattering targets from the wideband power data. The imbalances and coupling between antenna polarization channels and the characteristics of microwave components used in the measurement system are calibrated using three partly unknown scattering calibrators that are illuminated by four unknown-polarized calibrating waves.