A Time-Domain Detection Scheme for Mutual Terrain Scattered Interference in Spaceborne SAR Utilizing Polarization Characteristics

Mutual terrain scattered interference (MTSI), as a newly identified category of radio frequency interference (RFI), significantly deteriorates synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging quality. To address this challenge, this paper proposes a time-domain MTSI detection scheme utilizing polarization characteristics. Firstly, Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence and non-coherent accumulation are used to identify echo blocks with MTSI. Secondly, the K-means clustering algorithm is applied to determine the azimuth position of the interference. Finally, the degree of polarization (DOP) is utilized to determine the range position of the interference on a pulse-by-pulse basis, and a final RFI detection mask is obtained. Experimental results based on real measured Sentinel-1 SAR data confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.