Ionospheric corrections of MARSIS subsurface sounding signals with filters including collision frequency

Ionospheric corrections of Mars advanced radar for subsurface and ionosphere sounding (MARSIS) subsurface sounding signals are necessary before they can be further analyzed. Usually the ionosphere correction only considers the phase dispersion owing to the electron densities. In this paper we show that if the electron–neutral collision frequency is included in the correction filter, the signal-to-noise ratio of the processed signal can be further maximized and the spatial resolution of the signal be improved. Three different models of the ionosphere profile have been studied, and it is shown that a uniform slab model, of both densities and collisions, is feasible and probably the best choice when implementing the correction filter including collisions. The physical significance of the parameters obtained with the uniform model (equivalent parameters) is discussed, and it is shown that they are useful for the estimation of the real physical parameters of the ionosphere. We developed a recursive, random search algorithm to facilitate the realization of the correction process with the filter including collision frequency.