• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_3
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• pp.1457-1468
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• 2018

The sigma naught (${\sigma}^0$) equation is essential to calculate geo-physical properties from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images for the applications such as ground target identification,surface classification, sea wind speed calculation, and soil moisture estimation. In this paper, we are suggesting new Kompsat-5 (K5) Radar Cross Section (RCS) and ${\sigma}^0$ equations reflecting the final SAR processor update and absolute radiometric calibration in order to increase the application of K5 SAR images. Firstly, we analyzed the accuracy of the K5 RCS equation by using trihedral corner reflectors installed in the Kompsat calibration site in Mongolia. The average difference between the calculated values using RCS equation and the measured values with K5 SAR processor was about $0.2dBm^2$ for Spotlight and Stripmap imaging modes. In addition, the verification of the K5 ${\sigma}^0$ equation was carried out using the TerraSAR-X (TSX) and Sentinel-1A (S-1A) SAR images over Amazon rainforest, where the backscattering characteristics are not significantly affected by the seasonal change. The calculated ${\sigma}^0$ difference between K5 and TSX/S-1A was less than 0.6 dB. Considering the K5 absolute radiometric accuracy requirement, which is 2.0 dB ($1{\sigma}$), the average difference of $0.2dBm^2$ for RCS equation and the maximum difference of 0.6 dB for ${\sigma}^0$ equation show that the accuracies of the suggested equations are relatively high. In the future, the validity of the suggested RCS and ${\sigma}^0$ equations is expected to be verified through the application such as sea wind speed calculation, where quantitative analysis is possible.