RESSAC: a new airborne FM/CW radar ocean wave spectrometer

Author

Hauser, Danikle ; Caudal, GCrard ; Rijckenberg, Gert-Jan ; Vidal-Madjar, Daniel ; Laurent, Georges ; Lancelin, Philippe

Volume

30

Issue

5

fYear

1992

fDate

9/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

981

Lastpage

995

Abstract

The RESSAC radar system, used from aircraft platforms for measuring directional spectra of ocean waves in the gravity domain (wavelengths from 30 to 400 m), is presented. The instrument consists of a C-band (5.35-GHz) FM/CW radar system. The transmitting and receiving antennas look toward the surface at a low incidence angle (≈14° for the center of the antenna beam) and rotate around a vertical axis. When the data are processed, the known antenna gain pattern is removed from the recorded signal, making it possible to estimate the sea surface slope variance, which in turn is used to determine the tilt modulation transfer function, without the need of any external wind measurement. Fully normalized spectra obtained from RESSAC are compared to other data sets

Keywords

ocean waves; oceanographic equipment; radar systems; remote sensing by radar; 30 to 400 m; 5.35 GHz; C-band; FM/CW radar system; RESSAC radar system; Radar pour l´Etude des Spectre des Surfaces par Analyse Circulaire; SHF; antenna gain pattern; directional spectra; incidence angle; ocean wave spectrometer; remote sensing; sea surface slope variance; tilt modulation transfer function; Airborne radar; Antenna measurements; Ocean waves; Radar antennas; Radar measurements; Receiving antennas; Sea measurements; Sea surface; Spectroscopy; Transmitting antennas;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0196-2892

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/36.175333

Filename

175333