TanDEM-X Large-Scale Study of Tropical Rainforests for Spaceborne SAR Calibration in X-band

Inhalt:
Thanks to their homogeneity and isotropic characteristics, tropical rainforests are well known test sites for SAR calibration, in particular, for the estimation of the elevation antenna pattern. Several studies using C-Band sensors have shown a slight dependency of tropical rainforests backscatter on several parameters, such as the incidence angle of illumination and the day and seasonal time of acquisition. The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of radar backscatter of tropical rainforests using large-scale TanDEM-X quicklook mosaics and to discuss the consequent implications on SAR sensor calibration in X-band.