Ground Observation and Correction of P-band Radar Imaging Ionospheric Effects

For high resolution space-borne P-band SAR system, ionospheric effects could cause serious phase errors. These errors are causally related to the radar frequency and the TEC of ionosphere and make the image quality degraded. To guarantee the image quality, the ionosphere errors must be emended. Based on the mismatched filter model caused by ionosphere, it is pointed out that accurate ionosphere TEC is the key for phase error correction, a high precision ionosphere TEC measurement method is further put forward by using the phase errors of SAR echoes, which is validated by processing the data of a ground based P-band radar with well focused radar image of the international space station obtained. The results indicate that the method can effectively increase the accuracy of ionosphere TEC estimation, and thus improve the radar imaging quality, it is applicable to low frequency space-borne SAR systems for reducing the ionosphere effects.