Development of an IEEE standard for calibration of microwave radiometers

Abstract

In January 2019 a Project Authorization Request was submitted to the IEEE standards association with the title "Standard for Calibration of Microwave Radiometers in the 300 MHz to 1 THz Frequency Range for Geoscience Applications". An open committee is being assembled to draft this standard with the purpose of unifying and documenting calibration procedures for a wide range of microwave radiometers. The committee includes members, collaborators, and contributors from academia, international government and private industry. We include ground-based, air-borne, and space-borne systems. The standard will also define standardized terminology, and address procedures required to obtain traceability to fundamental units or constants. The scope of the standard encompasses various radiometer geometries, Dicke switching, total power, and differential, as well as different polarization configurations including fully polarized (full Stoke's) radiometers. The standard will also separately address free-space and single-mode (e.g. transmission-line) radiometer calibration techniques.