An experimental study of a pulse compression scatterometer system

Author

Schuler, Dale L.

Author_Institution

Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA

Volume

25

Issue

1

fYear

1977

fDate

1/1/1977 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

140

Lastpage

145

Abstract

The ideal scatterometer, operating from either an aircraft or a satellite platform, should be capable of making rapid, accurate estimates of the sea backscatter cross section $\\sigma$ over as wide a range of grazing angles $\\psi$ as possible. Efficient operation over a large range of grazing angles is desirable because 1) $\\sigma$ behavior for $90\\deg \\geq \\psi \\geq 70\\deg$ yields rms gravity wave slope information and is an indicator of sea state and 2) $\\sigma$ behavior for $70\\deg \\geq \\psi \\geq 0\\deg$ yields data on surface wind magnitude and direction as well as information about the power spectrum of the sea. A "hybrid" estimation procedure has been developed for pulse compression radars which uses both frequency and spatially decorrelated samples of $\\sigma$ to provide an unbiased estimate of $\\sigma$ having minimum variance over the entire range of grazing angles for which radar reception is not noise-limited.

Keywords

Chirp radar; Sea surface electromagnetic scattering; Aircraft; Backscatter; Frequency estimation; Gravity; Pulse compression methods; Radar measurements; Satellites; Sea surface; Spaceborne radar; Surface waves;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Antennas and Propagation, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-926X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TAP.1977.1141534

Filename

1141534