A Unified Algorithm for Channel Imbalance and Antenna Phase Center Position Calibration of a Single-Pass Multi-Baseline TomoSAR System

The multi-baseline synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography (TomoSAR) system is employed in such applications as disaster remote sensing, urban 3-D reconstruction, and forest carbon storage estimation. This is because of its 3-D imaging capability in a single-pass platform. However, a high 3-D resolution of TomoSAR is based on the premise that the channel imbalance and antenna phase center (APC) position are precisely known. If this is not the case, the 3-D resolution performance will be seriously degraded. In this paper, a unified algorithm for channel imbalance and APC position calibration of a single-pass multi-baseline TomoSAR system is proposed. Based on the maximum likelihood method, as well as the least squares and the damped Newton method, we can calibrate the channel imbalance and APC position. The algorithm is suitable for near-field conditions, and no phase unwrapping operation is required. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm has been verified by simulation and experimental results