Compromise and Trade-Off between Signal-to-Noise Ratio and Number of Independent Samples for Radar Scatterometers with Pulse Compression

It is well known, that the backscattering radiometric accuracy of radar scatterometers for ocean surface wind and precipitation measurements is decided by the signal-to-noise ratio and number of independent samples for non-coherent average. For sea wind scatterometers and meteorological radars, pulse compression can be employed to improve the range resolution and increase the number of independent numbers. But for airborne and spaceborne scatterometers, the peak power of the transmitter and the pulse length are usually decided by the platform capability, orbit parameter and observation geometry. As a result, compromise and trade-off between the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for measurement of each resolution cell and the total number of independent samples of each pulse are usually required. In this paper, based on the radiometric accuracy model, an optimization scheme for design of the independent samples numbers and the corresponding system bandwidth are presented. Based on the presented optimization scheme, the bandwidth of a Ku-band rotating fan-beam radar scatterometer for sea surface wind measurement is design. Simulation validates the optimization and design results.