A Ku-band rotating fan-beam scatterometer: Design and performance simulations

This paper introduces the design and simulation results of a Ku-band rotating fan-beam radar scatterometer for ocean surface wind vector measurement. It will be flown on a small satellite dedicated to provide data for investigation of the ocean wave and ocean surface wind vector interactions, along with another payload for measurement of directional ocean wave spectra by a real-aperture radar with multiple scanned pencil beams. Key issues about the design of a Ku-band rotating fan-beam radar scatterometer, and results of performance simulations are provided as well. The performance of the system is simulated by the absolute and relative specifications. For the absolute specifications, retrieval performances for both wind speed and wind direction are evaluated, with the maximum likelihood method being employed. For the relative specifications, the figures of merit (FOM) is simulated, for comparison with other Ku-band scatterometers and optimization of system parameters. Simulation results of both the σ° precision and wind retrieval accuracies for different wind speed from 4m/s to 24m/s will be provided, which shows that SCAT can satisfy the performance requirements within most part of the swath.