Patent ID: 6914553

Claim:
A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for a moveable platform comprising: at least one antenna movable with the platform and directed through the ionosphere; a radar transmitter cooperating with said at least one antenna to propagate transmit pulses through the ionosphere, and subjecting the transmit pulses to a Faraday rotation based upon propagation through the ionosphere along a transmit path; a radar receiver cooperating with said at least one antenna to receive echo pulses through the ionosphere based upon the transmit pulses, and subjecting the echo pulses to a Faraday rotation based upon propagation through the ionosphere along a receive path; and a radar processor connected to said radar transmitter and radar receiver for processing to account for the Faraday rotation introduced by propagation through the ionosphere by estimating an individual ionospheric distortion for each received echo pulse based upon a measured Faraday rotation, and reducing the ionospheric distortion for each received echo pulse based upon the estimated individual ionospheric distortion associated therewith for providing a compensated echo pulse.