Received power optimization for the unconstrained case between the emitted and received polarizations of radar antennas

A new procedure is proposed to find the optimum polarizations for the case of unconstrained relationship between the emitted and received polarizations of radar antennas. Similar to the three-step procedure, the optimum polarizations are found by adjusting the polarizations of radar antennas to result in maximum or minimum received power. But the proposed procedure is different from the three-step procedure, in which the proposed one can be applied to both the coherent and the incoherent scattering cases. The transmitted optimal polarization states are obtained by optimizing the polarimetric power received under the conditions of antenna mismatched/matched receiving for the partially polarized waves. Real polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data are used to compare the proposed procedure with the currently available procedures. The results indicate that the proposed procedure is validated to be efficient in calculating the optimal polarization states of the receiving and transmitting antenna.