Abstract
It is well known that the radar backscattering characteristics of the tropical rain forest show very small dependencies on the incidence angle for wide range of the radar frequencies through several experiments. Based on this fact, an estimation of the SAR antenna elevation pattern for the JERS-1 satellite was conducted through two steps, (1) the statistical screening of the SAR data over the tropical rain forest to obtain the same characterized uniform images, and (2) the application of the correlated SAR image model including the noise bias, which should be considered for more correct estimation of the antenna beam width, to the screened SAR images by means of the least square method. Finally, one way antenna elevation pattern was obtained to 5.44 degree in terms of 3 dB down beam width, with the accuracy of 0.17 degree. It was also estimated that the beam width did not change between before and after launch so much, but, SAR off nadir angle is 34.905 degree, which is 0.3 degree smaller than the original angle of SAR antenna deployment.
