Search

Imaging radars provide information that is fundamentally different from sensors that operate in the visible and infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has launched a multi-mode, multi-polarization Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on-board Radar Imaging SATellite-1 (RISAT-1) on 26 April 2012. Various data products from RISAT-1 SAR are now going through calibration-validation (cal-val) phase and soon will be available for the global users for operational and research purposes. In this regard, algorithms are being developed to retrieve various parameters in diverse application areas. This article deals with the in-house algorithm development for studying different resources using initial available data of RISAT-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lunar surface properties at both polar and equatorial regions were studied using data from the miniaturized synthetic aperture radar (Mini-SAR) on-board Chandrayaan-1. The Mini-SAR sensor was operated at the S-band (2.38 GHz) with left circular polarization for transmission, and horizontal and vertical polarizations for reception. The returned signal was stored in planetary data system format, where each pixel in an image strip was represented by the corresponding Stokes vectors. The study showed that circular polarization ratio, which is an important parameter that represents scattering associated with planetary ice as well as dihedral reflection, was anomalously high inside some of the craters in the polar regions. Other Stokes parameters such as degree of polarization (m) and LH-LV relative phase (δ) also showed distinctly different types of scattering mechanisms inside and outside the craters on the lunar surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]