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This paper describes mainly the design and the features of the RadioFrequency (RF) unit which is part of the development of a novel active X-band SAR system calibrator for both PAZ satellite and airborne prototypes (RBX, RIX) by INTA. The ground calibrator consists of an active transponder path and a detector path. This system will be used for absolute radiometric calibration of SAR image data and for antenna pattern evaluation, besides it provides a monitoring of the performance of the transponder itself. During the validation phase of both the PAZ and the RBX missions in 2014 this system will be demanded.

The IFSAR is an airborne SAR simulator for extended targets developed by INTA. This tool generates simulated signal data of an artificial three-dimensional scene as collected by an interferometric SAR with a fully configurable system oriented to airborne applications. Scene is made of points and triangular extended targets, over a selected ellipsoid, and it can be drawn using common CAD software. GPS motion records of plane and moving point targets, extended targets, associated scattering patterns, chirp signal, antenna patterns and TxRx diagram can be simulated too. Experimental results comparing interferograms from real and simulated missions shows that the tool is extremely accurate and requires few computer resources. It is used to calibrate of MOCO algorithms and interferometric processors, to probe new techniques and solve problems in real acquisitions of interferometric airborne SAR data