Development of DLR's Innovative Remote Controlled Calibration Targets - Potential of Polarization Sensitive Measurements

For the radiometric calibration of a spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system active and passive point targets with well known backscatter properties are used. The permanent advancement of upcoming SAR satellite missions regarding complexity, multiple operational modes, and accuracy lead to novel challenges for these reference targets. Full polarimetric SAR systems play an important role and the calibration of these systems requires reference targets with polarimetric backscattering properties. This paper gives an overview about the DLR activities concerning the development of accurate and innovative reference target including a presentation of results from polarization sensitive measurements.