Radiometric correction of saturated SAR data

An imaging (or correlation) process for saturated synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data that is caused by the limited dynamic range of the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) was investigated using the stochastic process approach. The theoretical models for the correlation power and its normalized standard deviation were derived. Based on these, a radiometric correction method for the saturated SAR data was proposed. Error analysis was conducted for the data acquired in the manual and automatic gain modes. It was shown that the proposed method can correct the saturated SAR data of both modes, although the data in automatic gain are more accurately corrected than that in manual gain; the proposed method was verified by using the JERS-1 SAR data.