Sampling patterns and perspective applications of clock scanning synthetic aperture imaging radiometer

Applying passive microwave sensor in GEO earth observations are of special interest because it has the advantages of temporally continuous and spatially large coverage compared to the LEO systems, which provide relatively narrow swaths with a revisit time of 12 hours or more. Unfortunately the required horizontal resolution leads to a rather large antenna size in GEO which is unpractical for the traditional real aperture radiometers especially in low frequency bands. The new concept of clock scanning microwave interferometric radiometer (CS-MIR) using aperture synthesis provides an opportunity to resolve this problem. This paper describes some approaches of CS-MIR, specifically on the items of array configuration, sampling patterns and potential GEO applications.