Title :
SIRAL, a high spatial resolution radar altimeter for the Cryosat mission
Author :
Rey, L. ; De Château-Thierry, P. ; Phalippou, L. ; Mavrocordatos, C. ; Francis, R.
Author_Institution :
Alcatel Space Industrie, Toulouse, France
Abstract :
SIRAL (SAR Interferometer Radar Altimeter) is the new spaceborne altimeter designed for CryoSat mission. This ESA mission, planned for 2004, will be used to estimate-on a global scale- the fluctuations in mass of sea-ice and land-ice. The novelty of SIRAL concept with respect to conventional pulse-limited altimeter, is the implementation of Doppler processing for along-track resolution enhancement and also of interferometry, used to locate the echo in the across-track direction. The innovative technical features of SIRAL are presented hereafter with regards to the function requirements and also the expected performance
Keywords :
hydrological equipment; ice; oceanographic equipment; radar altimetry; radar resolution; radiowave interferometers; remote sensing by radar; sea ice; synthetic aperture radar; CryoSat mission; Doppler processing; SAR interferometer radar altimeter; SIRAL; across-track direction; along-track resolution enhancement; conventional pulse-limited altimeter; interferometry; land ice; sea-ice; spaceborne altimeter; Frequency; Ice; Instruments; Interferometry; Receiving antennas; Sea measurements; Sea surface; Spaceborne radar; Spatial resolution; Synthetic aperture radar;
Conference_Titel :
Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2001. IGARSS '01. IEEE 2001 International
Conference_Location :
Sydney, NSW
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7031-7
DOI :
10.1109/IGARSS.2001.978261
