Noise wave analysis of Dicke and noise injection radiometers: Complete S-paramater analysis and effect of temperature gradients

The performance analysis of microwave radiometers is often simplified assuming that most/all circuits are perfectly matched and that all are at the same physical temperature. However, the increasing performances demanded to future instruments makes necessary to assess their performance including all these effects: actual complex S-parameters of the different subsystems (non-zero insertion losses, finite matching, finite isolation....), physical temperature gradients etc. in view to devise a software correction, when it is not possible to warrant them by design. A full noise-wave analysis is presented in this paper.