Analysis and Correction of the Phase and Amplitude Errors for Mirrored Aperture Synthesis

Mirrored aperture synthesis (MAS) has been proposed as a novel interferometry to achieve higher spatial resolution in passive microwave remote sensing. The phase and amplitude errors for MAS are a crucial problem that has yet to be analyzed. In this letter, a model for the phase and amplitude errors is established. A correction method based on an external source is proposed to correct the phase and amplitude errors. An analysis of the position of the external source is performed by computing its impact on the radiometric accuracy of a reference scene. The imaginary parts of the cross correlations for MAS are analyzed for the first time. Simulations and experiments are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the correction method.