June 15, 2023Back

Space Applications Centre (SAC)/ ISRO has developed Active Radar Calibrators useful over multiple microwave bands. These multiband ARC system will be used as prime calibration target during different calibration campaign of SAR satellite operating in L, S, C and X bands. These physically small systems are easy to operate and align. Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) based approach is used for system development to make it economic for technology transfer to industry for the mass production. While commercially available ARC for each frequency costs ₹ 5 crores foreign exchange, ISRO developed ARC systems cater to L,S,C & X SAR missions at less than 3% of this cos

Microwave imaging techniques provide sub meter resolution imaging for variety of applications. A large number of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors operating from L - Band to X - Band are developed. Multi-polarization SAR data requires calibration of the images to extract information contained in the polarimetric characteristics of the illuminated pixel. Active Radar Calibrators (ARC) offer tunable radar cross section (RCS) and polarimetric calibration capability added to their advantages of a single system with a small form factor. The Wideband Polarimetric ARC developed at SAC-ISRO is an attempt to make it even frequency independent over L, S, C & X band with varying polarization and resolution capabilities.