Subsurface sounding of Mars: multi-pulse detection of water-related interfaces

We introduce optimized multi-pulse algorithms for the analysis of Mars surface and subsurface radar data, referring in particular to the data which should be acquired by the MARSIS instrument in the near future. The proposed processing schemes aim at detecting the presence and estimating the depth of water-related subsurface interfaces. A statistical model is introduced to cope with the expected scenario, and maximum likelihood based detection and estimation techniques are derived. The performance of the new techniques is deeply investigated, proving the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.