Experimental Demonstration of the Corbella Equation for Aperture Synthesis Microwave Radiometry

The fundamental equation of aperture synthesis microwave radiometry has been recently revised into a new so-called Corbella equation to include antenna coupling effects and the interferometry formulation into a single equation. This equation has been experimentally demonstrated for the first time with a full prototype of the Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis. Several tests have been carried out to demonstrate the new visibility equation with different targets. The test results show better agreement with simulations based on the Corbella equation than the old fundamental equation. An initial analysis of the influence of the antenna pattern characterization errors shows the importance of these errors in the final results according to the new formulation